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Zoe (empress)

Zoe (empress)

Zoe (in Greek Ζωή, meaning "life"), (c. 978 - 1050) was Empress of the Byzantine Empire with co-rulers November 15, 1028 - 1050, and reigning Empress from April 19 to June 11, 1042. By the time she first married, she had turned 50. Despite her advanced age, she married two times more, to supply Byzantium with capable emperors. It is said she was stunningly beautiful and one person even commented that, like a well baked chicken 'every part of her was firm and in good condition. She realised her charms and meant to keep and use them for as long as possible. With typical Byzantine ingenuity, she had many rooms in her chambers converted into laboratories for the preparation of arcane ointments. Thus, she was able to keep her face free of wrinkles till she was 60. Zoe was one of the few Byzantine empresses born into the purple (that is, as the legitimate child of a reigning emperor). She was daughter of Constantine VIII of the Byzantine Empire, who had become co-emperor in 976, and sole emperor in 1025. He reigned for only three years between December 15, 1025 and November 15, 1028. Before dying Constantine had married Zoe to his chosen heir Romanus III Argyrus, the eparch of Constantinople, on November 12, 1028. Constantine hoped that Romanus would help his daughter to control the government, but Romanus proved to be an unfaithful husband and an ineffective emperor. He was found murdered in his bath in 1034. Zoe immediately remarried, even before his body was removed from the bath. Zoe's second husband was Michael IV "the Paphlagonian", who reigned until his death in 1041. Her next co-ruler was her adoptive son Michael V Calaphates, nephew of her second husband, whose short reign lasted only into the next year. For two months in 1042, Zoe shared the government with her sister, Theodora, until she could find yet another husband, her third and the last she was permitted according to the rules of the Orthodox Church. Her choice fell upon Constantine IX Monomachus (reigned 1042-1055) who outlived her by four years. Zoe died in 1050.

Bibliography


- Michael Psellus the Younger. Chronographia. Category:978 births Category:1050 deaths Category:Roman empresses Category:Macedonian dynasty Category:Byzantine emperors Category:Empresses Category:Adoptive parents

Greek language

Greek (Greek Ελληνικά, IPA – "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language with a documented history of 3,500 years. Today, it is spoken by 15 million people in Greece, Cyprus, the former Yugoslavia, particularly The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania and Turkey. There are also many Greek emigrant communities around the world, such as those in Melbourne, Australia which is the third-largest Greek-populated city in the world, after Athens and Thessaloniki. Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet, the first true alphabet, since the 9th century B.C. and before that, in Linear B and the Cypriot syllabaries. Greek literature has a long and rich tradition.

History

This article does not cover the reconstructed history of Greek prior to the use of writing. For more information, see main article on Proto-Greek language. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan Peninsula since the 2nd millennium BC. The earliest evidence of this is found in the Linear B tablets dating from 1500 BC. The later Greek alphabet (q.v.) is unrelated to Linear B, and was derived from the Phoenician alphabet (abjad); with minor modifications, it is still used today. Greek is conventionally divided into the following periods:
- Mycenean Greek: the language of the Mycenean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 16th century BC onwards.
- Classical Greek (also known as Ancient Greek): In its various dialects was the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman empire. Classical Greek fell into disuse in western Europe in the Middle Ages, but remained known in the Byzantine world, and was reintroduced to the rest of Europe with the Fall of Constantinople and Greek migration to Italy.
- Hellenistic Greek (also known as Koine Greek): The fusion of various ancient Greek dialects with Attic (the dialect of Athens) resulted in the creation of the first common Greek dialect, which gradually turned into one of the world's first international languages. Koine Greek can be initially traced within the armies and conquered territories of Alexander the Great, but after the Hellenistic colonisation of the known world, it was spoken from Egypt to the fringes of India. After the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial diglossy of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. Through Koine Greek it is also traced the origin of Christianity, as the Apostles used it to preach in Greece and the Greek-speaking world. It is also known as the Alexandrian dialect, Post-Classical Greek or even New Testament Greek (after its most famous work of literature).
- Medieval Greek: The continuation of Hellenistic Greek during medieval Greek history as the official and vernacular (if not the literary nor the ecclesiastic) language of the Byzantine Empire, and continued to be used until, and after the fall of that Empire in the 15th century. Also known as Byzantine Greek.
- Modern Greek: Stemming independently from Koine Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the late Byzantine period (as early as 11th century). Two main forms of the language have been in use since the end of the medieval Greek period: Dhimotikí (Δημοτική), the Demotic (vernacular) language, and Katharévousa (Καθαρεύουσα), an imitation of classical Greek, which was used for literary, juridic, and scientific purposes during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Demotic Greek is now the official language of the modern Greek state, and the most widely spoken by Greeks today. It has been claimed that an "educated" speaker of the modern language can understand an ancient text, but this is surely as much a function of education as of the similarity of the languages. Still, Koinē , the version of Greek used to write the New Testament and the Septuagint, is relatively easy to understand for modern speakers. Greek words have been widely borrowed into the European languages: astronomy, democracy, philosophy, thespian, etc. Moreover, Greek words and word elements continue to be productive as a basis for coinages: anthropology, photography, isomer, biomechanics etc. and form, with Latin words, the foundation of international scientific and technical vocabulary. See English words of Greek origin, and List of Greek words with English derivatives.

Classification

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European language family. The ancient languages which were probably most closely related to it, Ancient Macedonian language (which may be regarded as a dialect of Greek) and Phrygian, are not well enough documented to permit detailed comparison. Among living languages, Armenian seems to be the most closely related to it.

Geographic distribution

Modern Greek is spoken by about 15 million people mainly in Greece and Cyprus. There are also Greek-speaking populations in Georgia, Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, Albania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Southern Italy. The language is spoken also in many other countries where Greeks have settled, including Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States.

Official status

Greek is the official language of Greece where it is spoken by about 99.5% of the population. It is also, alongside Turkish, the official language of Cyprus. Due to the membership of Greece and Cyprus, Greek is one of the 20 official languages of the European Union.

Phonology

This section generally describes the post-Classic phonology of the Greek language. :All phonetic transcriptions in this section use the International Phonetic Alphabet

Vowel sounds

Greek has 5 vowel sounds, all phonemic:

1050

Events


- Leofric becomes Bishop of Exeter

Births


- November 11 - Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1106)
- Margrave Leopold II of Austria (d. 1095)

Deaths


- Zoe of Byzantium, Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire
- Anund Jacob of Sweden, King of Sweden Category:1050 ko:1050년

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. In certain specific contexts, usually referring to the time before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it is also often referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire. There is no consensus on the starting date of the Byzantine period. Some place it during the reign of Diocletian (284-305) due to the administrative reforms he introduced, dividing the empire into a pars Orientis and a pars Occidentis. Others place it during the reign of Theodosius I (379-395) and Christendom's victory over paganism, or, following his death in 395, with the division of the empire into western and eastern halves. Others place it yet further in 476, when the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate, thus leaving to the emperor in the Greek East sole imperial authority. In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine I inaugurated his new capital, the process of Hellenization and Christianization was well underway.

The term "Byzantine Empire"

Main article: Names of the Greeks The name Byzantine Empire is derived from the original Greek name for Constantinople; Byzantium. The name is a modern term and would have been alien to its contemporaries. The Empire's native Greek name was Romanía or Basileía Romaíon, a direct translation of the Latin name of the Roman Empire, Imperium Romanorum. The term Byzantine Empire was invented in 1557, about a century after the fall of Constantinople by German historian Hieronymus Wolf, who introduced a system of Byzantine historiography in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae in order to distinguish ancient Roman from medieval Greek history without drawing attention to their ancient predecessors. Standardization of the term did not occur until the 18th century, when French authors such as Montesquieu began to popularize it. Hieronymus himself was influenced by the rift caused by the 9th century dispute between Romans (Byzantines as we render them today) and Franks, who, under Charlemagne's newly formed empire, and in concert with the Pope, attempted to legitimize their conquests by claiming inheritance of Roman rights in Italy thereby renouncing their eastern neighbours as true Romans. The Donation of Constantine, one of the most famous forged documents in history, played a crucial role in this. Henceforth, it was fixed policy in the West to refer to the emperor in Constantinople not by the usual "Imperator Romanorum" (Emperor of the Romans) which was now reserved for the Frankish monarch, but as "Imperator Graecorum" (Emperor of the Greeks) and the land as "Imperium Graecorum", "Graecia", "Terra Graecorum" or even "Imperium Constantinopolitanus". This served as a precedent for Wolf who was motivated, at least partly, to re-interpret Roman history in different terms. Nevertheless, this was not intended in a demeaning manner since he ascribed his changes to historiography and not history itself. Later, a derogatory use of 'Byzantine' was developed.

Identity

"Byzantium may be defined as a multi-ethnic empire that emerged as a Christian empire, soon comprised the Hellenized empire of the East and ended its thousand year history, in 1453, as a Greek Orthodox state: An empire that became a nation, almost by the modern meaning of the word".1 In the centuries following the Arab and Lombard conquests in the 7th century, its multi-ethnic (albeit not multi-national) nature remained even though its constituent parts in the Balkans and Asia Minor contained an overwhelmingly large Greek population. Ethnic minorities and sizeable communities of religious heretics often lived on or near the borderlands, the Armenians being the only sizeable one. Byzantines identified themselves as Romans (Ρωμαιοί - Romans) which had already become a synonym for a Hellene (Έλλην - Greek). Also, the Byzantines were developing a national consciousness as residents of Ρωμανία (Romania, as the Byzantine state and its world were called). This nationalist awareness is reflected in literature, particularly in the acritic songs, where frontiersmen (ακρίτες) are praised for defending their country against invaders, of which most famous is the heroic or epic poem Digenis Acritas. The official dissolution of the Byzantine state in the 15th century did not immediately undo Byzantine society. During the Ottoman occupation Greeks continued to identify themselves as both Ρωμαιοί (Romans) and Έλληνες (Hellenes), a trait that survived into the early 20th century and still persists today in modern Greece, albeit the former has now retreated to a secondary folkish name rather than a national synonym as in the past.

Origin

Greece, Illyricum and Oriens, roughly analogous to the four Tetrarchs' zones of influence after Diocletian's reforms.]] Caracalla's decree in 212, the Constitutio Antoniniana, extended citizenship outside of Italy to all free adult males in the entire Roman Empire, effectively raising provincial populations to equal status with the city of Rome itself. The importance of this decree is historical rather than political. It set the basis for integration where the economic and judicial mechanisms of the state could be applied around the entire Mediterranean as was once done from Latium into all of Italy. Of course, integration did not take place uniformly. Societies already integrated with Rome such as Greece were favored by this decree, compared with those far away, too poor or just too alien such as Britain, Palestine or Egypt. The division of the Empire began with the Tetrarchy (quadrumvirate) in the late 3rd century with Emperor Diocletian, as an institution intended to more efficiently control the vast Roman Empire. He split the Empire in half, with two emperors (Augusti) ruling from Italy and Greece, each having as co-emperor a younger colleague of their own (Caesares). After Diocletian's voluntary abandonment of the throne, the Tetrarchic system began soon to crumble: the division continued in some form into the 4th century until 324 when Constantine the Great killed his last rival and became the sole emperor. Constantine decided to found a new capital for himself and chose Byzantium for that purpose. The rebuilding process was completed in 330. 330 Constantine renamed the city Nova Roma, but the populace would commonly call it Constantinople (in Greek, Κωνσταντινούπολις, Constantinoúpolis, meaning Constantine's City). This new capital became the centre of his administration. Constantine deprived the single preatorian prefect of his civil functions, introducing regional prefects with civil authority. During the 4th century, four great "regional prefectures" were also created. Constantine was also probably the first Christian emperor. The religion which had been persecuted under Diocletian became a "permitted religion", and steadily increased his power as years passed, apart from a short-lived return to pagan predominance with emperor Julian. Although the empire was not yet "Byzantine" under Constantine, Christianity would become one of the defining characteristics of the Byzantine Empire, as opposed to the pagan Roman Empire. Constantine also introduced a new stable gold coin, the solidus, which was to become the standard coin for centuries, not only in Byzantine Empire. Another defining moment in the history of the Roman/Byzantine Empire was the Battle of Adrianople in 378 in which the Emperor Valens and the best of the remaining Roman legions were killed by the Visigoths. This defeat has been proposed by some authorities as one possible date for dividing the ancient and medieval worlds. The Roman Empire was divided further by Valens' successor Theodosius I (also called "the Great"), who had ruled both parts since 392: following the dynastic principle well established by Constantine, in 395 Theodosius gave the two halves to his two sons Arcadius and Honorius; Arcadius became ruler of the eastern half, with his capital in Constantinople, and Honorius became ruler of the western half, with his capital in Ravenna. Theodosius was the last Roman emperor whose authority covered the entire traditional extent of the Roman Empire. At this point, it is common to refer to the empire as "Eastern Roman" rather than "Byzantine."

Early history

The Eastern Roman Empire was largely spared the difficulties of the west in the 3rd and 4th centuries (see Crisis of the Third Century) in part because urban culture was better established there and the initial invasions were attracted to the wealth of Rome. Throughout the 5th century, various invasions conquered the western half of the Roman Empire and at best only demanded tribute from the eastern half. Theodosius II fortified the walls of Constantinople, leaving the city impenetrable to attacks: it was to be preserved from foreign conquest until 1204. To spare the Eastern Roman Empire from the invasion of the Huns of Attila, Theodosius gave them subsidies of gold. Moreover, he favored merchants living in Constantinople who traded with the barbarians. His successor, Marcian, refused to continue to pay the great sum. However, Attila had already diverted his attention from the Western Roman Empire and died in 453 after the Battle of Chalons. The Hunnic Empire collapsed and Constantinople was free from the menace of Attila. This started a profitable relationship between the Eastern Roman Empire and the remaining Huns. The Huns would eventually fight as mercenaries in Byzantine armies during the following centuries. At the time since the fall of Attila, the true chief in Constantinople was the Alan general Aspar. Leo I managed to free himself from the influence of the barbarian chief favouring the rise of the Isauri, a crude semi-barbarian tribe living in Roman territory, in southern Anatolia. Aspar and his son Ardabur were murdered in a riot in 471, and henceforth, Constantinople became free from foreign influences for centuries. Leo was also the first emperor to receive the crown not from a general or an officer, as evident in the Roman tradition, but from the hands of the patriarch of Constantinople. This habit became mandatory as time passed, and in the Middle Ages, the religious characteristic of the coronation had totally substituted the old form. The first Isaurian emperor was Tarasicodissa, who was married to Leo's daughter Ariadne in 466, and ruled as Zeno I after the death of Leo I's son, Leo II (autumn of 474). Zeno was the emperor when the Western Roman Empire finally collapsed in 476 and the barbarian general Odoacer deposed Emperor Romulus Augustus without replacing him with another puppet. In 468, an attempt was made by Leo I to conquer North Africa again from the Vandals had failed. This showed that the Eastern Roman Empire had feeble military capabilities. At that time, the Western Roman Empire was already restricted to Italy (Britain had fallen to Angles and Saxons, Spain fell to the Visigoths, Africa fell to the Vandals and Gaul fell to the Franks). To recover Italy, Zeno could only negotiate with the Ostrogoths of Theodoric who had been settled in Moesia. He sent the barbarian king in Italy as magister militum per Italiam ("chief of staff for Italy"). Since the fall of Odoacer in 493, Theodoric, who had lived in Constantinople during his youth, ruled over Italy on his own while maintaining a mere formal obedience to Zeno. He revealed himself as the most powerful Germanic king of that age, but his successors were greatly inferior to him and their kingdom of Italy started to decline in the 530s. In 475, Zeno was deposed by a plot to elevate Basiliscus (the general defeated in 468) to the throne. However, Zeno was again emperor twenty months later. Yet, Zeno had to face the threat coming from his Isaurian former official Illo and the other Isaurian, Leontius, who was also elected rival emperor. Isaurian prominence ended when an aged civil officer of Roman origin, Anastasius I, became emperor in 491 and after a long war defeated them in 498. Anastasius revealed himself to be an energetic reformer and an able administrator. He perfected Constantine I's coin system by definitively setting the weight of the copper follis, the coin used in most everyday transactions. He also reformed the tax system in which the State Treasury contained the enormous sum of 320,000 pounds of gold when he died.

The age of Justinian I

The reign of Justinian I, which began in 527, saw a period of extensive imperial conquests of former Roman territories (indicated in green on the map below). The 6th century also saw the beginning of a long series of conflicts with the Byzantine Empire's traditional early enemies, such as the Persians, Slavs and Bulgars. Theological crises, such as the question of Monophysitism, also dominated the empire. Justinian I had perhaps already exerted effective control during the reign of his predecessor, Justin I (518-527). Justin I was a former officer in the imperial army who had been chief of the guards to Anastasius I, and had been proclaimed emperor (when almost 70) after Anastasius' death. Justinian was the son of a peasant from Illyricum, but was also a nephew of Justin. Justinian was later adopted as Justin's son. Justinian would become one of the most refined people of his century, inspired by the dream to re-establish Roman rule over all the Mediterranean world. He reformed the administration and the law, and with the help of brilliant generals such as Belisarius and Narses, he temporarily regained some of the lost Roman provinces in the west, conquering much of Italy, North Africa, and a small area in southern Spain. In 532, Justinian secured for the Eastern Roman Empire peace on the eastern frontier by signing an "eternal peace" treaty with the Sassanid Persian king Khosrau I. However, this required in exchange a payment of a huge annual tribute of gold. Justinian's conquests in the west began in 533 when Belisarius was sent to reclaim the former province of North Africa with a small army of 18,000 men who were mainly mercenaries. Whereas an earlier expedition in 468 had been a failure, this new venture was successful. The kingdom of the Vandals at Carthage lacked the strength of former times under King Gaiseric and the Vandals surrendered after a couple of battles against Belisarius' forces. General Belisarius returned to a Roman triumph in Constantinople with the last Vandal king, Gelimer, as his prisoner. However, the reconquest of North Africa would take a few more years to stabilize. It was not until 548 that the main local independent tribes were entirely subdued. 548 In 535, Justinian I launched his most ambitious campaign, the reconquest of Italy. At the time, Italy was still ruled by the Ostrogoths. He dispatched an army to march overland from Dalmatia while the main contingent, transported on ships and again under the command of General Belisarius, disembarked in Sicily and conquered the island without much difficulty. The marches on the Italian mainland were initially victorious and the major cities, including Naples, Rome and the capital Ravenna, fell one after the other. The Goths were seemingly defeated and Belisarius was recalled to Constantinople in 541 by Justinian. Belisarius brought with him to Constantinople the Ostrogoth king Witiges as a prisoner in chains. However, the Ostrogoths and their supporters were soon reunited under the energetic command of Totila. The ensuing Gothic Wars were an exhausting series of sieges, battles and retreats which consumed almost all the Byzantine and Italian fiscal resources, impoverishing much of the countryside. Belisarius was recalled by Justinian, who had lost trust in his preferred commander. At a certain point, the Byzantines seemed to be on the verge of losing all the positions they had gained. After having neglected to provide sufficient financial and logistical support to the desperate troops under Belisarius' former command, in the summer of 552 Justinian gathered a massive army of 35,000 men (mostly Asian and Germanic mercenaries) to contribute to the war effort. The astute and diplomatic eunuch Narses was chosen for the command. Totila was crushed and killed at the Busta Gallorum. Totila's successor, Teias, was likewise defeated at the Battle of Mons Lactarius (central Italy, October 552). Despite continuing resistance from a few Goth garrisons, and two subsequent invasions by the Franks and Alamanni, the war for the reconquest of the Italian peninsula came to an end. Justinian's program of conquest was further extended in 554 when a Byzantine army managed to seize a small part of Spain from the Visigoths. All the main Mediterranean islands were also now under Byzantine control. Aside from these conquests, Justinian updated the ancient Roman legal code in the new Corpus Juris Civilis. Even though the laws were still written in Latin, the language itself was becoming archaic and poorly understood even by those who wrote the new code. Under Justinian's reign, the Church of Hagia Sofia ("Holy Wisdom") was constructed in the 530s. This church would become the center of Byzantine religious life and the center of the Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity. The 6th century was also a time of flourishing culture and even though Justinian closed the university at Athens, the Eastern Roman Empire produced notable people such as the epic poet Nonnus, the lyric poet Paul the Silentiary, the historian Procopius, the natural philosopher John Philoponos and others. The conquests in the west meant that the other parts of the Eastern Roman Empire were left almost unguarded even though Justinian was a great builder of fortifications in Byzantine territories throughout his reign. Khosrau I of Persia had, as early as 540, broken the pact previously signed with Justinian and destroyed Antiochia and Armenia. The only way Justinian could forestall him was to increase the sum he paid to Khosrau I every year. The Balkans were subjected to repeated incursions where Slavs had first crossed the imperial frontiers during the reign of Justin I. The Slavs took advantage of the sparsely-deployed Byzantine troops and pressed on as far as the Gulf of Corinth. The Kutrigur Bulgars had also attacked in 540. The Slavs invaded Thrace in 545 and in 548 assaulted Dyrrachium, an important port on the Adriatic Sea. In 550, the Sclaveni pushed on as far to reach within 65 kilometers of Constantinople itself. In 559, the Eastern Roman Empire found itself unable to repel a great invasion of Kutrigurs and Sclaveni. Divided in three columns, the invaders reached Thermopylae, the Gallipoli peninsula and the suburbs of Constantinople. The Slavs feared the intact power of the Danube Roman fleet and of the Utigurs (paid by the Romans themselves) more than the resistance of the ill-prepared Byzantine imperial army. This time the Eastern Roman Empire was safe, but in the following years the Roman suzerainty in the Balkans was to be almost totally overwhelmed. Soon after the death of Justinian in 565, the Germanic Lombards, a former imperial foederati tribe, invaded and conquered much of Italy. The Visigoths conquered Cordoba, the main Byzantine city in Spain, first in 572 and then definitively in 584. The last Byzantine strongholds in Spain were swept away twenty years later. The Turks emerged in the Crimea, and in 577, a horde of some 100,000 Slavs had invaded Thrace and Illyricum. Sirmium, the most important Roman city on the Danube, was lost in 582, but the Eastern Roman Empire managed to mantain control of the river for several more years even though it increasingly lost control of the inner provinces. Justinian's successor, Justin II, refused to pay the tribute to the Persians. This resulted in a long and harsh war which lasted until the reign of his successors Tiberius II and Maurice, and focused on the control over Armenia. Fortunately for the Byzantines, a civil war broke out in the Persian Empire. Maurice was able to take advantage of his friendship with the new king Khosrau II (whose disputed accession to the Persian throne had been assisted by Maurice) in order to sign a favorable peace treaty in 591. This treaty gave the Eastern Roman Empire control over much of Persian Armenia. Maurice reorganized the remaining Byzantine possessions in the west into two Exarchates, the Ravenna and the Carthage. Maurice increased the Exarchates' self-defense capabilities and delegated them to civil authorities. The Avars and later the Bulgars overwhelmed much of the Balkans, and in the early 7th century the Persians invaded and conquered Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Armenia. The Persians were eventually defeated and the territories were recovered by Emperor Heraclius in 627. However, the unexpected appearance of the newly-converted and united Muslim Arabs took the territories by surprise from an empire exhausted from fighting against Persia, and the southern provinces were overrun. The Eastern Roman Empire's most catastrophic defeat of this period was the Battle of Yarmuk, fought in Syria. Heraclius and the military governors of Syria were slow to respond to the new threat, and Byzantine Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, and the Exarchate of Africa were permanently incorporated into the Muslim Empire in the 7th century, a process which was completed with the fall of Carthage to the Caliphate in 698. The Lombards continued to expand in northern Italy, taking Liguria in 640 and conquering most of the Exarchate of Ravenna in 751, leaving the Byzantines with control of only small areas around the toe and heel of Italy, plus some semi-independent coastal cities like Venice, Naples, Amalfi and Gaeta.

The fight for survival

The Eastern Roman Empire's loss of territory was offset to a degree by consolidation and an increased uniformity of rule. Emperor Heraclius fully Hellenized the Eastern Roman Empire by making Greek the official language, thus ending the last remnants of Latin and ancient Roman tradition within the empire. The use of Latin in government records, (Latin titles such as Augustus and the concept of the Eastern Roman Empire being one with Rome) fell into abeyance, which allowed the empire to pursue its own identity. Many historians mark the sweeping reforms made during the reign of Heraclius as the breaking-point with Byzantium's ancient Roman past. It is common to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire as "Byzantine" instead of as "East Roman" from this point onwards. Religious rites and religious expression within the empire were now also noticeably different from the practices upheld in the former imperial lands of western Europe. Within the empire, the southern Byzantine provinces differed significantly in culture and practice from those in the north, observing Monophysite Christianity rather than Chalcedonian Orthodox. The loss of the southern territories to the Arabs further strengthened Orthodox practices in the remaining provinces. Constans II (reigned 641 - 668) subdivided the empire into a system of military provinces called thémata (themes) in an attempt to improve local responses to the threat of constant assaults. Outside of the capital, urban life declined while Constantinople grew to become the largest city in the Christian world. Several attempts to conquer Constantinople by the Arabs failed in the face of the Byzantines' superior navy, the Byzantines' monopoly over the still-mysterious incendiary weapon (Greek fire), their strong city walls, and the skill of Byzantine generals and warrior-emperors such as Leo III the Isaurian (reign 717 - 741). Once the assaults were repelled, the empire's recovery resumed. In his landmark work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the 18th century historian Edward Gibbon depicted the Byzantine Empire of this time as effete and decadent. However, an alternate examination of the Byzantine Empire shows instead that the empire was a military superpower during the early Middle Ages. Factors contributing to this view entail the empire's heavy cavalry (the cataphracts), its subsidization (albeit inconsistent) of a free and well-to-do peasant class forming the basis for cavalry recruitment, its extraordinarily in-depth defense systems (the themes), and its use of subsidies in order to make Byzantium's enemies fight against one another. Other factores include the empire's prowess at intelligence-gathering, a communications and logistics system based on mule trains, a superior navy (although often under-funded), and rational military strategies and doctrines (not dissimilar to those of Sun Tzu) that emphasized stealth, surprise, swift maneuvering and the marshalling of overwhelming force at the time and place of the Byzantine commander's choosing. After the siege of 717 in which the Arabs suffered horrific casualties, the Caliphate was no longer a serious threat to the Byzantine heartland. It would take a different civilization, that of the Seljuk Turks, to finally drive the imperial forces out of eastern and central Anatolia. The 8th century was dominated by controversy and religious division over iconoclasm. Icons were banned by Emperor Leo III, leading to revolts by iconophiles throughout the empire. After the efforts of Empress Irene, the Second Council of Nicaea met in 787 and affirmed that icons could be venerated but not worshipped. Irene also attempted a marriage alliance with Charlemagne. This alliance would have united the two empires and thus would have recreated the Roman Empire (the two European empires both claimed the title). Moreover the alliance would have created a European superpower comparable to the strength of ancient Rome. However, these plans were destroyed when Irene was deposed. The iconoclast controversy returned in the early 9th century, only to be resolved once more in 843 during the regency of Empress Theodora (9th century). These controversies further contributed to the disintegrating relations with the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire, both of which continued to increase their independence and power.

Golden era

Holy Roman Empire The Eastern Roman Empire reached its height under the Macedonian emperors of the late 9th, 10th and early 11th centuries. During these years the Empire held out against pressure from the Roman church to remove Patriarch Photios, and gained control over the Adriatic Sea, parts of Italy, and much of the land held by the Bulgarians. The Bulgarians were completely defeated by Basil II in 1014. The empire also gained a new ally (yet sometimes also an enemy) in the new Varangian state in Kiev, from which the empire received an important mercenary force, the Varangian Guard. In 1054, relations between Greek-speaking Eastern and Latin-speaking Western traditions within the Christian Church reached a terminal crisis. There was never a formal declaration of institutional separation, and the so-called Great Schism actually was the culmination of centuries of gradual separation. From this split, the modern (Roman) Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches arose. Like Rome before it, Byzantium soon fell into a period of difficulties caused to a large extent by the growth of aristocracy, which undermined the theme system. Facing its old enemies (the Holy Roman Empire and the Abbasid Caliphate), the Eastern Roman Empire might have recovered, but around the same time new invaders appeared on the scene who had little reason to respect its reputation. The Normans finally completed the expulsion of the Byzantines from Italy in 1071 due to an ostensible lack of Byzantine interest in sending any support to Italy. Also, the Seljuk Turks, who were mainly interested in defeating Egypt under the Fatimids, continued their military campaigns into Asia Minor, which was the main recruiting ground for Byzantine armies. With the surprise defeat of Emperor Romanus IV by Alp Arslan (sultan of the Seljuk Turks) at Manzikert in 1071, most of that province was lost.

The end of Byzantium

1071 After Manzikert, a partial recovery was made possible from the contributions of the Comnenian dynasty. The first emperor of this royal line, Alexius Comnenus (whose life and policies would be described by his daughter Anna Comnena in the Alexiad) began to reestablish the army on the basis of feudal grants (próniai) and made significant advances against the Seljuk Turks. His plea for western aid against the Seljuk advance brought about the First Crusade, which helped him reclaim Nicaea. However, the emperor soon distanced himself from western imperial aid. Later crusades grew increasingly antagonistic. Although Alexius' grandson Manuel I Comnenus was a friend of the Crusaders, neither side could forget that the other had excommunicated them, and the Byzantines were very suspicious of the intentions of the Roman Catholic Crusaders who continually passed through their territory. Although the three competent Comnenan emperors had the power to expel the severely outnumbered Seljuks, it was never in their interest to do so, as the expansion back into Anatolia would have meant sharing more power with the feudal lords, thus weaking their power. Ironically, re-conquering Anatolia may have saved the Eastern Roman Empire in the long run. The Germans of the Holy Roman Empire and the Normans of Sicily and southern Italy continued to attack the empire in the 11t and 12th centuries. The Italian city-states, who had been granted trading rights in Constantinople by Alexius, became the targets of anti-Western sentiments as the most visible example of western "Franks" or "Latins." The Venetians were especially disliked, even though their ships were the basis of the Byzantine navy. To add to the empire's concerns, the Seljuks remained a threat, defeating Manuel at the Myriokephalon in 1176. 1176 Frederick Barbarossa attempted to conquer the Eastern Roman Empire during the Third Crusade, but it was the Fourth Crusade that had the most devastating effect on the empire. Although the stated intent of the crusade was to conquer Egypt, the Venetians took control of the expedition when their chieftains could not pay the transport of the troops, and under their influence the Crusaders captured Constantinople in 1204. As a result, a short-lived feudal kingdom was founded (the Latin Empire), and Byzantine power was permanently weakened. At this time, the Serbian Kingdom under the Nemanjic dynasty grew stronger with the collapse of Byzantium, forming a Serbian Empire in 1346. 1346 and the Despotate of Epirus.]] After the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, three successor states were established. These states included the Empire of Nicaea, the Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus. The first state, controlled by the Palaeologan dynasty, managed to reclaim Constantinople in 1261 and defeated Epirus. This led to the reviving of the Eastern Roman Empire, but the empire's attention was more focused on Europe than on the Asian provinces that were the primary concern. For a while, the empire survived simply because the Muslims were too divided to attack. However, the Ottomans eventually overran many Byzantine territories except for a handful of port cities. Ottomans).]] Ottomans The Eastern Roman Empire appealed to the west for help, but they would only consider sending aid in return for reuniting the churches. Church unity was considered, and occasionally accomplished by law, but the Orthodox citizens would not accept Roman Catholicism. Some western mercenaries arrived to help, but many preferred to let the empire die, and did nothing as the Ottomans picked apart the remaining territories. Constantinople was initially not considered worth the effort of conquest, but with the advent of cannons, the walls (which had been impenetrable for over 1000 years except by the Fourth Crusade) no longer offered adequate protection against the Ottomans. The Fall of Constantinople finally came after a two-month siege by Mehmed II on May 29, 1453. The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Paleologus, was last seen entering deep into the fighting of an overwhelmingly outnumbered civilian army, against the invading Ottomans on the ramparts of Constantinople. Mehmed II also conquered Mistra in 1460 and Trebizond in 1461. 1461 Mehmed and his successors continued to consider themselves proper heirs to the Byzantine Empire until the demise of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century. By the end of the 15th century, the Ottoman Empire had established its firm rule over Asia Minor and parts of the Balkan peninsula. Meanwhile, the role of the emperor as a patron of Eastern Orthodoxy was now claimed by the Grand Dukes of Muscovy starting with Ivan III. His grandson, Ivan IV, would become the first Tsar of Russia (tsar, also spelled czar, is a term derived from the Latin word caesar). Their successors supported the idea that Moscow was the proper heir to Rome and Constantinople and the idea of a Third Rome was carried throughout the Russian Empire until its demise in the early 20th century.

Legacy and importance

20th century It is said history is written by the winners, and no better example of this statement is shown in the treatment of the Byzantine Empire in history. It is an empire resented by Western Europe, as shown by the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade. A popular American university textbook4 on medieval history that circulated in the 1960s and 1970s, has this to say in the only paragraph in the book devoted to "Byzantium": :The history of Byzantium is a study in disappointment. The empire centering on Constantinople had begun with all the advantages obtained from the inheritance of the political, economic, and intellectual life of the 4th century Roman Empire ... Byzantium added scarcely anything to this superb foundation. The Eastern Roman Empire of the Middle Ages made no important contributions to philosophy, theology, science or literature. Its political institutions remained fundamentally unchanged from those which existed ... at the end of the 4th century; while the Byzantines continued to enjoy an active urban and commercial life they made no substantial advance in the technology of industry and trade as developed by the cities of the ancient world. Modern historians of the medieval Eastern Roman empire have strongly criticized the tendency of 19th-century scholars to write off Byzantium as the example of an atrophied civilization. Yet it is hard to find ... any contribution by way of either original ideas or institutions which the medieval Greek-speaking peoples made to civilization (pp. 248-9). The 20th century has seen an increased interest by historians to understand the empire, and its impact on European civilization is only recently being recognised. Why should the West be able to perceive its continuity from Antiquity and thus its intrinsic meaning in the modern world - in so lurid a manner, only to deny this to the "Byzantines"?5 Called with justification "The City," the rich and turbulent metropolis of Constantinople was to the early Middle Ages what Athens and Rome had been to classical times. Byzantine civilization itself constitutes a major world culture. Because of its unique position as the medieval continuation of the Roman State, it has tended to be dismissed by classicists and ignored by Western medievalists. And yet, the development and late history of Western European, Slavic and Islamic cultures are not comprehensible without taking it into consideration. A study of medieval history requires a thorough understanding of the Byzantine world. In fact, the Middle Ages are often traditionally defined as beginning with the fall of Rome in 476 (and hence the Ancient Period), and ending with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Byzantium was arguably the only stable state in Europe during the Middle Ages. Its expert military and diplomatic power ensured inadvertently that Western Europe remained safe from many of the more devastating invasions from eastern peoples, at a time when the Western Christian kingdoms might have had difficulty containing it. Constantly under attack during its entire existence, the Byzantines shielded Western Europe from the Persians, Arabs, Seljuk Turks, and for a time, the Ottomans. In commerce, Byzantium was one of the most important western terminals of the Silk Road. It was also the single most important commercial center of Europe for much, if not all, of the Medieval era. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453 closed the land route from Europe to Asia and marked the downfall of the Silk Road. This prompted a change in the commercial dynamic, and the expansion of the Islamic Ottoman Empire not only motivated European powers to seek new trade routes, but created the sense that Christendom was under siege and fostered an eschatological mood that influenced how Columbus and others interpreted the discovery of the New World.6 Byzantium played an important role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and to Renaissance Italy. Its rich historiographical tradition preserved ancient knowledge upon which splendid art, architecture, literature and technological achievements were built. It is not an altogether unfounded assumption that the Renaissance could not have flourished were it not for the groundwork laid in Byzantium, and the flock of Greek scholars to the West after the fall of the Empire. The influence of its theologians on medieval Western thought (especially on Thomas Aquinas) was profound, and their removal from the "canon" of Western thought in subsequent centuries has, in the minds of many, only served to impoverish the canon. The Byzantine Empire was the empire that brought widespread adoption of Christianity to Europe - arguably one of the central aspects of a modern Europe’s identity. This is embodied in the Byzantine version of Christianity, which spread Orthodoxy that eventually led to the creation of the so-called "Byzantine commonwealth" (a term coined by 20th century historians) throughtout Eastern Europe. Early Byzantine missionary work spread Orthodox Christianity to various Slavic peoples, and it is still predominant among the Russians, Ukrainians, Serbians, Bulgarians, people of the Republic of Macedonia, as well as among the Greeks. Less well known is the influence of the Byzantine religious sensibility on the millions of Christians in Ethiopia, the Coptic Christians of Egypt, and the Christians of Georgia and Armenia,though they all belong to the Orthodox Faith. Robert Byron, one of the first great 20th century Philhellenes, maintained that the greatness of Byzantium lay in what he described as "the Triple Fusion": that of a Roman body, a Greek mind and an oriental, mystical soul. The Roman Empire of the East was founded on Monday 11 May 330; it came to an end on Tuesday 29 May 1453 - although it had already come into being when Diocletian split the Roman Empire in 286, and it was still alive when Trebizond finally fell in 1461. It was an empire that dominated the world in all spheres of life, for most of its 1,123 years and 18 days. Yet although it has been shunned and almost forgotten in the history of the world up until now, the spirit of Byzantium still resonates in the world. By preserving the ancient world, and forging the medieval, the Byzantine Empire's influence is hard to truly grasp. However, to deny history the chance to acknowledge its existence, is to deny the origins of Western civilization as we know it.

See also


- Western Roman Empire
- List of Byzantine Empire-related topics
- Roman Empire
- Roman Emperors
- Byzantine Emperors
- History of Greece
- History of the Ottoman Empire
- History of the Balkans
- History of Europe
- History of the Middle East
- History of Rome
- Latin Empire
- Lombards
- Empire of Nicaea
- Empire of Trebizond
- Despotate of Epirus
- Despotate of Morea
- Byzantine currency
- Byzantine art
- Byzantine architecture
- Byzantine music
- Byzantine aristocracy and bureaucracy
- Byzantine army
- Byzantine battle tactics
- Byzantine navy
- Comnenus
- Palaeologus
- Eastern Orthodox Church Calendar
- Derogatory use of Byzantine

External links


- [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/byzantium/ Byzantium: Byzantine studies on the Internet] <

1028

Events


- November 12 - Dying Emperor Constantine VIII of the Byzantine Empire marries his daughter Zoe of Byzantium to his chosen heir Romanus Argyrus.
- November 15 - Romanus Argyrus becomes Eastern Roman Emperor as Romanus III.

Births


-

Deaths


- May 5 - Alfonso V, king of León and Galicia
- November 15 - Emperor Constantine VIII of the Byzantine Empire (b. 960)
- Fujiwara no Michinaga, Japanese regent (b. 966) Category:1028 ko:1028년

1050

Events


- Leofric becomes Bishop of Exeter

Births


- November 11 - Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (d. 1106)
- Margrave Leopold II of Austria (d. 1095)

Deaths


- Zoe of Byzantium, Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire
- Anund Jacob of Sweden, King of Sweden Category:1050 ko:1050년

June 11

June 11 is the 162nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (163rd in leap years), with 203 days remaining.

Events


- 1184 BC - According to the calculations of Eratosthenes, the date that Troy was sacked and burned.
- 1509 - Marriage of King Henry VIII of England and Katherine of Aragon.
- 1770 - Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.
- 1774 - Jews in Algiers escape the attacks of the Spanish army.
- 1788 - Russian explorer Gerasim Izmailov reaches Alaska.
- 1825 - The first cornerstone is laid for Fort Hamilton in New York City.
- 1866 - The Allahabad High Court (then Agra High Court]] is established in India.
- 1892 - The Limelight Department, one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
- 1898 - Spanish-American War: U.S. war ships start to sail for Cuba.
- 1901 - New Zealand annexes the Cook Islands.
- 1903 - Alexander Obrenovic, king of Serbia, was assassinated in Belgrade by the Black Hand (Crna Ruka) organization.
- 1907 - George Dennett, aided by Gilbert Jessop, dismisses Northamptonshire for 12 runs, the lowest total in first-class cricket.
- 1937 - Great Purge: The Soviet Union executes eight army leaders under Joseph Stalin.
- 1838 - An earthquake occurs in Belgium.
- 1935 - Inventor Edwin Howard Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States, at Alpine, New Jersey.
- 1940 - World War II: British forces bomb Genoa and Turin, Italy.
- 1940 - World War II: First attack of the Italian Airforce on the island of Malta.
- 1942 - World War II: The United States agrees to send Lend-Lease aid to the Soviet Union.
- 1955 - Eighty-three are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the Le Mans Grand Prix.
- 1962 - Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin become the only prisoners to apparently successfully escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island. No conclusive evidence has ever been found that they survived the escape attempt.
- 1963 - American Civil Rights Movement: Alabama Governor George Wallace stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students from attending that school.
- 1963 - Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.
- 1964 - World War II veteran Walter Seifert runs amok in an elementary school in Cologne, Germany, killing at least eight children and two teachers and seriously injuring several more with a home-made flamethrower and a lance.
- 1967 - Mexico becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
- 1970 - After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.
- 1977 - Seattle Slew wins the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.
- 1985 - A Fabergé Egg was sold for £1,375,00 in New York.
- 1988 - Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute Wembley Stadium, London.
- 1988 - The name of the General Public License (GPL) is mentioned first time.
- 1998 - Compaq Computer pays $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in largest high-tech acquisition.
- 2001 - Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
- 2002 - Antonio Meucci was recognised as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.
- 2004 - Cassini-Huygens makes its closest flyby of Phoebe.
- 2004 - Ronald Reagan's funeral held at Washington National Cathedral
- 2005 - G8 finance ministers agree to cancel the debt owed by 18 of the poorest countries.

Births


- 1403 - John IV, Duke of Brabant (d. 1427)
- 1456 - Anne Neville, queen of Richard III of England (d. 1485)
- 1540 - Barnabe Googe, English poet (d. 1594)
- 1572 - Ben Jonson, English dramatist (d. 1637)
- 1588 - George Wither, English writer (d. 1667)
- 1671 - Colley Cibber, English poet (d. 1757)
- 1672 - Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and composer (d. 1749)
- 1696 - Francis Edward James Keith, Scottish soldier and Prussian field marshal (d. 1758)
- 1704 - Carlos Seixas, Portuguese composer (d. 1742)
- 1713 - Edward Capell, English critic (d. 1781)
- 1723 - Johann Georg Palitzsch, German astronomer (d. 1788)
- 1776 - John Constable, English painter (d. 1837)
- 1842 - Carl von Linde, German engineer and industrialist (d. 1934)
- 1847 - Millicent Fawcett, British suffragist and feminist (d. 1929)
- 1864 - Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor (d. 1949)
- 1867 - Charles Fabry, French physicist (d. 1945)
- 1876 - Alfred L. Kroeber, American anthropologist (d. 1960)
- 1877 - Renee Vivien, English-born poet (d. 1909)
- 1879 - Roger Bresnahan, baseball player (d. 1944)
- 1879 - Max Schreck, German actor (d. 1936)
- 1880 - Jeannette Rankin, American politician, feminist, and pacifist (d. 1973)
- 1903 - Ernie Nevers, American football player (d. 1976)
- 1910 - Jacques-Yves Cousteau, French explorer and inventor (d. 1997)
- 1913 - Vince Lombardi, American football coach (d. 1970)
- 1919 - Richard Todd, British actor
- 1920 - Hazel Scott, West Indian-born singer (d. 1981)
- 1922 - John Bromfield, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1925 - William Styron, American author
- 1928 - Fabiola de Mora y Aragón, Queen of the Belgians
- 1932 - Athol Fugard, South African playwright
- 1933 - Gene Wilder, American actor
- 1936 - Jud Strunk, American musician-comedian (d. 1981)
- 1936 - Chad Everett, American actor
- 1937 - Robin Warren, Australian pathologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine
- 1937 - Johnny Brown, American comic
- 1939 - Jackie Stewart, Scottish race car driver
- 1945 - Adrienne Barbeau, American actress
- 1947 - Laloo Prasad Yadav, Indian politician
- 1947 - Henry Cisneros, American politician, former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development secretary
- 1949 - Frank Beard, member of rock group ZZ Top
- 1950 - Lynsey De Paul, British singer and songwriter
- 1950 - Bjarne Stroustrup, Danish computer scientist
- 1952 - Donnie Van Zant, American rock musician
- 1953 - Peter Bergman, American actor
- 1956 - Joe Montana. American football player
- 1957 - Jamaaladeen Tacuma, American musician
- 1959 - Hugh Laurie, English actor and comedian
- 1962 - Erika Salumäe, Estonian cyclist, Olympian
- 1965 - Joey Santiago, Filipino guitarist (Pixies)
- 1969 - Steven Drozd, American drummer
- 1973 - Robby Kiger, American actor
- 1978 - Joshua Jackson, Canadian actor
- 1982 - Diana Taurasi, American basketball player
- 1982 - Eldar Rønning, Norwegian cross-country skier
- 1984 - Vagner Love, Brazilian footballer

Deaths


- 1183 - Henry the Young King, son of Henry II of England (b. 1155)
- 1216 - Henry of Flanders, Emperor of the Latin Empire
- 1488 - King James III of Scotland
- 1557 - King John III of Portugal (b. 1502)
- 1695 - André Félibien, French architect (b. 1619)
- 1712 - Louis Joseph, duc de Vendôme, Marshal of France (b. 1654)
- 1727 - King George I of Great Britain (b. 1668)
- 1796 - Samuel Whitbread, English brewer and politician (b. 1720)
- 1852 - Karl Briullov, Russian painter (b. 1799)
- 1858 - Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, Austrian statesman (b. 1773)
- 1882 - Louis Maigret, Roman Catholic prelate (b. 1904)
- 1903 - Alexander Obrenovich, King of Serbia (b. 1876)
- 1903 - Nikolai Bugaev, Russian mathematician (b. 1837)
- 1911 - James Curtis Hepburn, American missionary and linguist (b. 1815)
- 1924 - Théodore Dubois, French composer and teacher (b. 1837)
- 1927 - William Attewell, English cricketer (b. 1861)
- 1934 - Lev Vygotsky, Russian psychologist (b. 1896)
- 1936 - Robert E. Howard, American author (b. 1906)
- 1937 - R. J. (Reginald Joseph) Mitchell, British aircraft designer (b. 1895)
- 1970 - Frank Laubach, Christian missionary (b. 1884)
- 1974 - Julius Evola, Italian philosopher (b. 1898)
- 1974 - Eurico Gaspar Dutra, President of Brazil (b. 1883)
- 1979 - John Wayne (Born Marion Morrison), American actor (b. 1907)
- 1984 - Enrico Berlinguer, Italian politician (b. 1922)
- 1985 - Karen Ann Quinlan, American right-to-die cause célèbre (b. 1954)
- 1986 - Chesley Bonestell, American-born engineer, architect, and artist (b. 1888)
- 1993 - Ray Sharkey, American actor (b. 1952)
- 1996 - Brigitte Helm, German actress (b. 1908)
- 1998 - Catherine Cookson, British novelist (b. 1906)
- 1999 - DeForest Kelley, American actor (b. 1920)
- 2001 - Timothy McVeigh, American terrorist (executed) (b. 1968)
- 2002 - Robbin Crosby, American guitarist (Ratt) (b. 1959)
- 2003 - David Brinkley, American television reporter (b. 1920)
- 2004 - Egon von Furstenberg, Swiss fashion designer (b. 1946)
- 2004 - Xenophon Zolotas, Prime Minister of Greece (b. 1904)
- 2005 - Vasco Gonçalves, Portuguese general (b. 1922)

Holidays and Observances


- Kamehameha Day, official state holiday of Hawai'i, United States, in honor of its first monarch, celebrated with floral parades, hula competition, and festivals
- Feast of St Barnabas
- Roman Empire, Matralia in honor of Mater Matuta
- Roman Empire, fifth day of the Vestalia in honor of Vesta

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/11 BBC: On This Day] ---- June 10 - June 12 - May 11 - July 11 – listing of all days ko:6월 11일 ms:11 Jun ja:6月11日 simple:June 11 th:11 มิถุนายน

Constantine VIII of the Byzantine Empire

.]] Constantine VIII (in Greek Konstantinos VIII, written Κωνσταντίνος Η') (960 – November 15, 1028), Byzantine emperor (December 15, 1025 – November 15, 1028) was the son of the Emperor Romanus II and Theophano; the younger brother of the eminent Basil II, who died childless and thus left the rule of the Byzantine Empire in his hands. Technically, Constantine became co-emperor with his brother when Basil assumed the throne in 976 at the age of 18, but during the 49 years that Basil II ruled, his brother had little role in the affairs of state even though Basil was often away from Constantinople fighting wars. Constantine is said to have spent most of this time living in luxury and with little or no responsibility. When Basil died on December 15, 1025, Constantine finally became sole emperor, although he ruled for less than three years before his own death on November 15, 1028. Physically Constantine was tall and magnificent where Basil had been short and stocky, and was graceful. He was a superb horseman. By the time he became emperor, he had chronic gout and could hardly walk. His reign was a disaster because he lacked in courage. He reacted to every challenge with cruelty. He ordered the execution or mutilation of hundreds of innocent men. Constantine carried on as he always had: hunting, feasting, and enjoying life - and avoided state business as much as possible. He was poor at appointing officials. Within months, the land laws of Basil II were dropped under pressure from the Anatolian aristocracy. Like his brother, Constantine died without a male heir. The empire thus passed to his daughter Zoë and a long line of her husbands and children, none of whom distinguished themselves.

Bibliography


- Michael Psellus the Younger. Chronographia.

External links


- Constantine VIII coinage: http://www.wildwinds.com/coins/byz/constantine_VIII/t.html Category:960 births Category:1028 deaths Category:Macedonian dynasty Category:Byzantine emperors ja:コンスタンティノス8世

1025

Events


- April 18 - Boleslaw I Chrobry is crowned as the first king of Poland.
- Srivijaya, a partly Buddhist kingdom based on Sumatra, is raided by pirates from the Chola region of southern India. It survives, but declines in importance.

Births


- August 28 - Emperor Go-Reizei of Japan (d. 1068)

Deaths


- December 15 - Basil II, Byzantine Emperor (b. 958)
- June 17 Boleslaw I Chrobry, King of Poland Category:1025 ko:1025년 simple:1025

December 15

December 15 is the 349th day of the year (350th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 16 days remaining.

Events


- 533 - The Battle of Ticameron begins
- 687 - St. Sergius I becomes Pope
- 1256 - Hulagu Khan captures and destroys the Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut in present-day Iran.
- 1791 - The United States Bill of Rights is passed
- 1891 - James Naismith introduces basketball.
- 1913 - Nicaragua becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty.
- 1914 - The Battle of Łódź ends; Russians retreat toward Moscow
- 1939 - Gone with the Wind premiers in Atlanta, Georgia
- 1945 - General Douglas MacArthur orders end of Shinto as state religion of Japan
- 1947 - All India Muslim League meeting in Karachi resolved to split itself into two separate organizations for Pakistan and India.
- 1960 - King Baudouin of Belgium marries Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adelaida de Mora y Aragón
- 1961 - An Israeli war crimes tribunal sentences Adolph Eichmann to die for his part in the Jewish holocaust
- 1965 - Gemini program: Gemini 6A is launched
- 1976 - Samoa becomes a member of the UN
- 1994 - Netscape Navigator 1.0 is first released
- 1994 - Palau becomes a member of the UN.
- 1995 - The European Communities Court of Justice passes the Bosman ruling
- 1997 - A chartered Tupolev TU-154 from Tajikistan crashes in the desert near Sharja, United Arab Emirates airport killing 85
- 2002 - BBC 7, digital radio station is launched in UK

Births


- 37 - Nero, Roman Emperor (d. 68)
- 130 - Lucius Verus, Roman Emperor (d. 169)
- 1242 - Prince Munetaka, Japanese shogun (d. 1274)
- 1567 - Christoph Demantius, German composer (d. 1643)
- 1610 - David Teniers the Younger, Flemish artist (d. 1690)
- 1634 - Thomas Hansen Kingo, Danish poet (d. 1703)
- 1648 - Gregory King, English statistician (d. 1712)
- 1713 -