Coureurs

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Coureurs (courir) french verb to run (de) of (bois) woods or
Coureurs de Bois- Runner of the Woods was an independent entrepreneurial French-Canadian trader who traveled in New France and the interior of North America, usually to trade with the indigenous people by exchanging various European items for furs.
These expeditions were part of the beginning of the fur trade in the North American interior. Initially, they traded for beaver coats but, as the market grew, coureurs de bois were trapping and trading prime beavers whose skins were to be sold in Europe.

Daniel Greysolon, Sieur d’Lhut was a coureurs de bois

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Daniel Greysolon

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Daniel Greysolon, Sieur d’Lhut (B) 1639, Saint-Germain-Laval, France a few miles northwest of Paris. (D) February 25, 1710, Montreal Quebec, Canada (NEW FRANCE)

He was a French soldier and explorer who is the first European known to have visited the area where the city of Duluth, Minnesota, is now located and the headwaters of the Mississippi River near Bemidji, Minnesota.

His family was of the lesser nobility, and Daniel had hardly finished his schooling before he was made a member of the King’s Guard.
From the earliest years of his manhood, Daniel had thrived on excitement and adventure. So long as there were battles to plan or fight he found great pleasure in army living, but he had no taste for the dull routine of the barracks, nor even for the carousing of off duty hours.

Early in 1670, his younger brother, Claude Greysolon, Sieur de la Tourette, was appointed by King Louis XIV to a minor post in New France. Claude asked his brother to come with him. Daniel, needing no second invitation, accompanied his brother to Quebec.

But two weeks in the capital city of New France did nothing to quiet the restlessness and the urge for action which plagued Daniel’s soul. He did not know the nature of the action he wanted, nor the kind of life that would bring peace to his heart. He did know, quickly, that whatever it was he desired it could not be found in Quebec City. This was a life that did not appeal to him. Was it, he thought, much different from the Paris he had left?

Louis de Buade, Count Frontenac, had only recently been appointed Governor of New France. From the moment of his arrival in Quebec, Frontenac had begun a remodeling of Fort St. Louis, (Today’s Chateau Frontenac) the huge, castle-like fortification which Champlain had built on a bluff high above the St. Lawrence. Fort St. Louis had served as the Government House of New France since its erection. But it was not sufficiently luxurious for the new Governor. Frontenac had the fort rebuilt.
On the day following their arrival in Quebec, Daniel had gone there with his brother when Claude presented his credentials to the Governor. By then Frontenac had already changed the name of the building, calling it Chateau St. Louis. Walking through the huge, stylish rooms, Daniel could not help but feel that Frontenac’s remodeling was an attempt to approach the beauty and splendor of King Louis XIV’s chateau at Versailles.

The tapestry hangings, the curtains of white damask embroidered in flowers of gold and silver, the mirrors in bright gold frames, the life-sized portraits of the kings of France, all suggested the pomp of life at the French court.

One evening at supper Daniel mentioned his unhappiness with Quebec to his brother. “I do not know what it is, brother,” he said to Claude. “I know only that I do not find in Quebec what I came to New France to seek.” “You must have patience, Daniel,” Claude told him. “In a short while, the Governor will have a grand position for you on his staff.” Daniel shook his head.
“You do not understand, Claude. I want no official position or I should have remained in Paris.” He thought for a moment of conversations he had overheard, then went on. «What is this Ville Marie of which I have heard?” Claude laughed. «A wild, unruly village on the river to the west,” he said. «Some forty-five leagues upriver.” “That is where I wish to go.” “To Ville Marie?” Claude exclaimed. “It is nothing.
It will never be anything.”(Today’s Montreal).

In late summer of 1678 many months had passed since Daniel Duluth’s return to Ville Marie, but now nearly all was in readiness for the journey into the north and west countries.
Planning for the expedition sponsored by Count Frontenac and the merchants had taken time. First, the agreement had to be reached between the sponsors and Daniel. With the Governor’s help, all differences had been finally resolved.

The rest is history_
He established peace between the Sioux and Chippewa. In 1679, he made an alliance with the Siouan Confederacy that gave France possession of Sioux territory, which made the region safer for traders.

Duluth ascended the Brule River in 1680, portaged to Upper St. Croix Lake and descended the St. Croix River to the Mississippi. He was probably the first white man to utilize the route. He returned to Mackinac by the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers.
At Mackinac, he learned that his enemies had accused him of being a “coureur de bails” — an unlicensed. He returned to France where he was freed of the charge and received a commission to traffic with the Sioux by way of the Wisconsin River. He spent the rest of his life exploring and conducting a profitable Indian trade in Wisconsin.
He helped protect the Wisconsin area against raids by the Iroquois. He also maintained the loyalty of France’s Indian allies, promoting French ascendancy throughout the Midwest. He retired from active trading in 1695 and lived in Montreal until his death

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François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers

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François Séverin Marceau-Desgraviers (B) 1769, Chartres, France
(D)1796, Altenkirchen, Germany age 27- Buried: Panthéon, Paris, France
He was a French general of the Revolutionary Wars. Battles and wars: French Revolutionary Wars Other work: Minister of Defence of the French Republic Commands held: Fortress of Mainz, Army of the West
Desgraviers was born at Chartres, Eure-et-Loir. His father served as a legal officer, and Marceau received education for a legal career, but at the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the regiment of Savoy-Carignan. Whilst on furlough in Paris,

Marceau joined in the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 – after that event, he took his discharge from the regular army and returned to Chartres, but the opposition of his family soon compelled him to seek new military employment. He became a drill instructor and later a Captain in the Eure-et-Loir départemental regiment of the National Guard.

In March 1792, Marceau was elected lieutenant colonel of one of the French Revolutionary Army battalions of the Eure-et-Loir. He took part in the defense of Verdun in 1792, and it was his troop that was ordered to bear the proposals of capitulation to the Prussian camp. The defenders’ lack of morale provoked the anger of the revolutionary authorities, and Marceau was fortunate to find re-employment as a captain in the regular service. However, early in 1793, he along with other officers under suspicion were arrested and spent some time in prison.

On his release, Marceau hurried to take part in the defense of Saumur against the Vendéean Royalists, distinguishing himself at the Battle of Saumur on 10 June 1793 by rescuing the representative Pierre Bourbotte from the hands of the insurgents. The National Convention voted him the thanks of the country and he received rapid promotion. His conduct at the Battle of Chantonnay on 5 September 1793 won him the provisional rank of general of brigade.
On 17 October, he bore a great part in the victory at the Battle of Cholet, and on began his friendship with Jean Baptiste Kléber while on the field of battle.

Kléber was made a general of division, and Marceau confirmed as general of brigade. Marceau, in turn, became a général de division on 10 November; then succeeded to the commander-in-chief ad interim. With Kléber, he crushed the Vendean rebels at the Battle of Le Mans on 12–13 December and at the Battle of Savenay on 23 December 1793.

In the wake of Le Mans, Marceau had rescued and protected a young Royalist lady, Angélique des Mesliers, with whom it has been supposed Marceau fell in love – however, even his help could not save her from the guillotine.

He and Kléber themselves were saved from arrest and execution only by the intervention of Bourbotte. Around this time Marceau became engaged to Agathe Leprêtre de Châteaugiron, but the marriage was prevented by his constant military employment, his broken health and the opposition of both Auguste-Félicité Le Prestre de Châteaugiron and Marceau’s devoted half-sister Emira, wife of the Republican politician Antoine Joseph Sergent.

After spending the winter of 1793–94 in Paris, Marceau accepted a command in the army under Jean-Baptiste Jourdan alongside Kléber and took part in the various battles near Charleroi. During the battle of Fleurus on 26 June 1794 he had a horse shot from under him. He distinguished himself at Jülich, at Aldenhoven and at Koblenz, where he stormed the enemy lines on 23 October.

He took part in the 1795-1796 campaign with the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, fighting on the Rhine and the Lahn and distinguishing himself alongside Kléber near Neuwied and Sulzbach.
After Jourdan and Jean Victor Marie Moreau’s Rhine Campaign of 1796 ended in defeat, Marceau’s men covered Jourdan’s retreat over the Rhine. Marceau fought in the desperate Battle of Limburg on the Lahn River (16–19 September 1796).

While conducting a successful rearguard action near Altenkirchen on 19 September, he received a mortal wound. He died two days later in the early morning, aged only twenty-seven.
The Austrians competed with Marceau’s own countrymen to honor the dead general. His body was burned and the ashes placed under a pyramid in Koblenz designed by Kléber. They were transferred to the Panthéon in 1889.
Marceau was immortalized in Byron’s “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”:
Excerpts Marceau by Captain T. G. Johnson I.S.C.Private library Antique book 1896 London

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Aphrodite/Venus

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Aphrodite/Venus
Greek and Roman goddess The ideal of feminine charm

The poets celebrated the perfect shape of her face, the sparkle of her eyes, her smiling mouth and the beauty of her breasts. A proud and cruel goddess, she haunted animal nature and reigned over the hearts and senses of men. Her worship was assimilated by the Romans with that of Venus, a goddess of ancient Italy.

Her origin According to Homer, she was the daughter of Zeus and Dione (Iliad, V, 312). According to Hesiod, she was born from the foam impregnated by the sexual organs of Uranus, which Cronos had severed and thrown into the sea. ‘The woman born of the waves’ was thus one of the first goddesses (Theogo1!}, 188 ff.). As soon as she came out of the water she was transported by the Zephyrs, first to Cythera and then to the shores of Cyprus. There she was dressed, covered in jewels, perfumed and taken to the immortals. From these two different origins, Plato identified two Aphrodites.

One, the daughter of Uranus, also called Urania, was the noble goddess of pure love. The other, the daughter of Dione, also called Pandemos, was the goddess of ‘common’ love. (The Banquet, VIII, 180) Her loves She married Hephaestus, the lame god (Otfyssey, VIII, 266–366), but outrageously deceived him with Ares, the god of war.

The two lovers were discovered by Phoebus, who rushed to inform Hephaestus. Hephaestus set a trap for them in the form of a net with invisible mesh and invited all the gods from Olympus to witness his misfortune. Surprised like this, Aphrodite fled in shame to Cyprus, and Ares to Thrace. From their union were born Eros (Love), Anteros (Love in return), Deimos and Phobos (Terror and Fear).

The frivolous Aphrodite, however, did not have only. one lover. Her passion for Adonis was well-known (Apollodorus, III, 14, 3). She also loved the shepherd, Anchises, whom she met on Mount Ida. Aeneas was their son (Iliad, II, 819). She had relationships with Hermes and with Dionysus, by whom she had Priapus.

Her favorites were Phaethon (Theogo1!}, 988), Cinyras (Iliad, XI, 20), Butes and Paris. She was jealous and made Eos (Dawn) conceive an impossible love for Orion because she had seduced Ares. Her weapons were varied and cruel, and she punished all those who would not succumb to her. She led the daughters of Cinyras into prostitution and inflicted a foul smell on the Lemnians who had neglected to worship
her. These women, abandoned by their husbands, killed all the men on the island and founded a society of women.

Her power was immense. She made Pasiphae fall in love with the bull of Minos. Her victims included Helen, Medea, Ariadne, Phaedra, and Hippodameia, to name but a few. The beauty competition Who was the most beautiful of the three goddesses: Hera, Athena, or Aphrodite?
This was the question posed by Eris (Discord), and the prize for whoever won the contest was a golden apple (the apple of strife). The contest itself has organized Zeus and took place on Mount Ida, and: here was only one judge, Paris. The three goddesses each knew how to make the best =l certain advantages which did not necessarily have any bearing on the subject of the contest.
Thus Hera offered Paris kingship the universe, Athena offered him invincibility in war, and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful mortal, Helen. In this way, Aphrodite won the prize and also became the cause of the Trojan War. Eros and Aphrodite

One was the god, the other the goddess, of .JOVe. Their functions, however, were not the same. Eros was often considered as a primordial god and was the power of mstinct. When Aphrodite appeared, he adapted himself to her and joined forces with her. Aphrodite marked the moment when the sexes became distinct. Along with Aphrodite ‘ere born the chatter of young girls, smiles, deception, charm and seduction.

marriage was one of the boundaries which separated the domains of Artemis and Aphrodite. The former was the chaste goddess who preferred hunting to seducing men. Her kingdom was that of the young girl. However, for the young girl, it was only a place through which she must pass; she could not stay there and leaving it would cost her her toys and dolls. The rhetorician Libanus said, ‘Girls go from Artemis to Aphrodite.’.

Aphrodite’s kingdom was elsewhere. It was the place of desire. No one could escape. Remember Atalanta who tried to flee from ‘Aphrodite’s gifts’ and keep her virginity? She had dedicated her life to the hunt, even turning her relationships with men into a manhunt, a game of chess. But when she was unable to keep her virginity any longer, Atalanta was trapped by Aphrodite’s wiles and turned into a lion.

Sometimes Aphrodite consumed women with violent and ungovernable passions. Think of the story of Diomedes, king of Thrace, who sent his mares to devour passersby. Those horrible animals were Charm, beauty, seduction, and sensuality were all qualities of Aphrodite. Here we can see the even .features of her face, the penetrating gaze, and the flowing drapery which both reveals and hides her perfect body.

Terracotta figurine from Myrina or Pergamon end of the 11th century. BCE.

The Romans were particularly religious. Their religion consisted essentially of making agreements with the gods. However, they also knew that they could not force their ‘partners’ in the same way.
From this comes the prime importance of the Venia, the grace, the free benevolence which they expected more specifically from Venus, hence her name. Venus was the goddess that they particularly ‘venerated’.or had great respect.

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Louis Joliet

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Louis Joliet 1645 Beaupré, a French settlement near Quebec City. When he was seven years old, his father died; his mother then married a successful merchant. Jolliet’s stepfather owned land on the Ile d’Orleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec that was home to indigenous people New France
(D) 1700. New France

He was a 17th-century Canadian explorer who, aided by Native American communities, explored the origins of the Mississippi River.
Born in Quebec, New France, Louis Joliet pursued religious and musical studies until deciding in adulthood to become a fur trader. In 1673, he embarked on a trip with missionary Jacques Marquette along the Mississippi River, ascertaining with Native American guidance that it led to the Gulf of Mexico. Joliet made later expeditions to the Hudson Bay and Labrador Coast.

Louis Joliet (also spelled “Jolliet”) born to Marie d’Abancourt and John Joliet. Baptized on September 21, 1645, he entered a Jesuit school as a child and focused on philosophical and religious studies, aiming for the priesthood.
He also studied music, becoming a skilled harpsichordist and church organist. Yet he decided to leave the seminary as an adult and pursued fur trading instead.

In 1673, Joliet embarked on a privately-sponsored expedition with Jacques Marquette, a missionary and linguist, to be among the first Europeans to explore what was called by Native Americans the “Mesipi” river and ascertain where it led to, with hopes of finding a passage to Asia.
After meeting in the Michilimackinac region, the men started their journey by canoe on May 17, 1673, to what would be known as the Mississippi River. A month later, they came upon a native village in the Illinois area and were hosted by the tribe’s chief, who sent his son with the group as a guide along with a peace pipe for future safe passage.

Continuing their travels to the Arkansas River region, they eventually came upon a native tribe ready to attack near the region that would be known as St. Louis. After seeing the peace pipe in Joliet’s hands, the tribe took the explorers to their village and revealed that there were armed Europeans further along the Mississippi. Joliet and Marquette realized that these were the Spanish settlers at the Gulf of Mexico—deducing that’s where the Mississippi led to and not Asia—and hence decided to turn around to avoid conflict and capture, having also noted other westward rivers. Along the way back, the young native guide showed the explorers a shorter route home by taking the Illinois River, with the men coming upon Lake Michigan and rich prairie land. Marquette came back to the area the following year with plans of proselytizing is to convert (a person) from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.

Joliet split from Marquette on his way back to Quebec and, in 1674, took a shortcut through the rapids of Lachine along the St. Lawrence. His canoe capsized, taking the lives of the additional passengers, including the chief’s son. Joliet was saved by fishermen after holding on to a rock for hours. Losing all of his highly detailed maps and journals, he recomposed some notes of the journey from memory, but Marquette’s recovered notes became the more relied upon resource.

The following year, Joliet wed Claire-Françoise Bissot and became more actively involved in Quebec’s church and community life. He returned to fur trading in 1676, setting up a business in the northern region of the St. Lawrence and also working as a merchant in the Michigan Archipelago. He took on another exploratory mission in 1679, at the behest of French colonists, to survey English and Native American trading relations in the Hudson Bay area.

Toward the end of the 17th century, Joliet was internationally known for his expeditions, from which official regional maps were created. Joliet went on another trip in 1694 to make detailed observations of the Labrador Coast, and in 1697, became a hydrographic professor at the University of Quebec.

Jolliet married Claire-Francoise Byssot de la Valtrie, who was Canadian. She was a daughter of Francois Byssot de la Riviere and his wife Marie Couillard. Claire Francoise was also a sister of Louise Byssot de la Valtrie, wife of Seraphin de Margane, Seigneur de la Valtrie.

In 1680, Jolliet was granted the Island of Antwhere where he created a fort and maintained soldiers.
In 1693, he was appointed “Royal Hydrographer”, and on April 30, 1697, he was granted a seigneury southwest of Quebec City which he named Jolliest.
In 1694, he sailed from the Gulf of St. Lawrence north along the coast of Labrador as far north as Zoar, a voyage of five and a half months. He recorded details of the country, navigation, the Inuit and their customs. His journal (“Journal de Louis Jolliet allant à la descouverte de Labrador, 1694,”) is the earliest known detailed survey of the Labrador coast from the Strait of Belle Isle to Zoar.
In May 1700, Louis Jolliet left for Anticosti Island. He then disappears from the historical record of the living. There is no listing of his death or burial place, and the sole record of his fate is the notation that a mass for his soul was said in Quebec on September 15, 1700.
Jolliet was one of the first people of European descent born in North America to be remembered for significant discoveries. Though no authentic period portrait is known to exist, Jolliet is often portrayed wearing either typical frontiersman garb such as a fur hat or in sharp contrast, ensconced in the European nobleman’s style that his personal wealth and prestige would have commanded although living in colonial society.

Jolliet’s main legacy is most tangible in the Midwestern United States and Quebec, mostly through geographical names, including the cities of Joliet, Illinois; Joliet, Montana; and Joliette, Quebec (founded by one of Jolliet’s descendants, Barthélemy Joliette).
The several variations in the spelling of the name “Jolliet” reflect spelling that occurred at times when illiteracy or poor literacy was common, and spelling was still highly unstandardized. Jolliet’s descendants live throughout eastern Canada and the United States. The Louis Jolliet rose, developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, was named in his honor.
The Jolliet Squadron of cadets at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean in the Province of Quebec was named in his honor. Joliet Junior College in Joliet, Illinois is named after the explorer, as are numerous high schools in North America.
A cruise ship sailing out of Quebec City is also named in his honor.

Posted in 17th century, Canadian, Europeans, Explorer, French, harpsichordist, Native American, native tribe, New France, North America, Philosophical, Quebec, Quebec City, region, relations, Religious, settlement, World Cultures | Leave a comment

Alan Mathison

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Alan Mathison Turing 1912-1954 age 42
He was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalization of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer.

Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. Despite these accomplishments, he was not fully recognized in his home country during his lifetime, due to his homosexuality, and because much of his work was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

During the Second World War, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park, Britain’s code-breaking center that produced Ultra intelligence. For a time he led Hut 8, the section that was responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Here, he devised a number of techniques for speeding the breaking of German ciphers, including improvements to the pre-war Polish bombe method, an electromechanical machine that could find settings for the Enigma machine.

Turing played a pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages that enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in many crucial engagements, including the Battle of the Atlantic, and in so doing helped win the war. Due to the problems of counterfactual history, it’s hard to estimate what effect Ultra intelligence had on the war, but at the upper end, it has been estimated that this work shortened the war in Europe by more than two years and saved over 14 million lives.

After the war, Turing worked at the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine, which was one of the first designs for a stored-program computer. In 1948, Turing joined Max Newman’s Computing Machine Laboratory at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he helped develop the Manchester computers and became interested in mathematical biology. He wrote a paper on the chemical basis of morphogenesis and predicted oscillating chemical reactions such as the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction, first observed in the 1960s.

Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts; the Labouchere Amendment of 1885 had mandated that “gross indecency” was a criminal offense in the UK. He accepted chemical castration treatment, with DES, as an alternative to prison. Turing died in 1954, 16 days before his 42nd birthday, from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined his death as a suicide, but it has been noted that the known evidence is also consistent with accidental poisoning.

In 2009, following an Internet campaign, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown made an official public apology on behalf of the British government for “the appalling way he was treated”.Queen Elizabeth II granted Turing a posthumous pardon in 2013.
The Alan Turing law is now an informal term for a 2017 law in the United Kingdom that retroactively pardoned men cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts. On 15 July 2019, the Bank of England announced that Turing would be depicted on the United Kingdom’s new £50 note.

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The Huns

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The Huns
They were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia at the time; the Huns’ arrival is associated with the migration westward of an Iranian people, the Alans.
y 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga, and by 430 the Huns had established a vast, if short-lived, dominion in Europe, conquering the Goths and many other Germanic peoples living outside of Roman borders, and causing many others to flee into Roman territory. The Huns, especially under their King Attila, made frequent and devastating raids into the Eastern Roman Empire.
In 451, the Huns invaded the Western Roman province of Gaul, where they fought a combined army of Romans and Visigoths at the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields, and in 452 they invaded Italy. After Attila’s death in 453, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their empire following the Battle of Nedao (454?).

The Huns written by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330-400 A.D.) is an invaluable document, it is also a stylistic masterpiece Ammianus superiority over the other writers of his time who could not help mentioning the Huns becomes evident from their statements about the first appearance of the savage hordes in the northern Balkan provinces.
They tell us in a few scanty words that the Goths were driven from their sites by the Huns; some add the story of a doe which led the Huns across the Cimmerian Bosporus.

Coming from the pen of “the greatest literary genius which the world has seen between Publius Cornelius Tacitus (B) 56 AD Gallia Narbonensis (also known as Provincia Nostra (“Our Province”), from its having been the first Roman province north of the Alps, and as Gallia Transalpina (“Transalpine Gaul”), distinguishing it from Cisalpine Gaul in northern Italy. It became a Roman province in the late 2nd century BC. (D) 120 AD, Roman Empire
He was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. Tacitus is considered to be one of the greatest Roman historians.

And of course Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri (B) 1265, Florence, Italy (One of my favorite individual s in history)
(D) 1321, Ravenna, Italy age 56-Buried: 1321, Basilica of San Francesco, Ravenna, Italy
He was commonly known by his pen name Dante Alighieri or simply as Dante, was an Italian poet. Quotes-“Beauty awakens the soul to act”.

Descendants of the Huns, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th to 6th centuries. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, (see separate Post)
who were northern neighbors of China in the 3rd century BCE Since Genghis Khan time (B)1162-,Delüün Boldog Momgola (D) 1227, Yinchuan, China-Place of burial: Khentii, Mongolia
He was the founder and first Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death. He came to power by uniting many of the nomadic tribes of Northeast Asia.

Very little is known about Hunnic culture and very few archaeological remains have been conclusively associated with the Huns. They are believed to have used bronze cauldrons and to have performed artificial cranial deformation. No description exists of the Hunnic religion of the time of Attila, but practices such as divination are attested, and the existence of shamans likely. It is also known that the Huns had a language of their own, however, only three words and personal names attest to it. Economically, they are known to have practiced a form of nomadic pastoralism; as their contact with the Roman world grew, their economy became increasingly tied with Rome through tribute, raiding, and trade. They do not seem to have had a unified government when they entered Europe, but rather to have developed a unified tribal leadership in the course of their wars with the Romans. The Huns ruled over a variety of peoples who spoke various languages and some of whom maintained their own rulers. Their main military technique was mounted archery.

The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. The memory of the Huns also lived on in various Christian saints’ lives, where the Huns play the roles of antagonists, as well as in the Germanic heroic legend, where the Huns are variously antagonists or allies to the Germanic main figures. In Hungary, a legend developed based on medieval chronicles that the Hungarians, and the Székely ethnic group in particular, are descended from the Huns. However, mainstream scholarship dismisses a close connection between the Hungarians and Huns. Modern culture generally associates the Huns with extreme cruelty and barbarism.
Excerpts private library “The World of The Huns it’s history and culture Otto J. Maenchen- Helfen

Image of a medallion, depicting Attila the Hun with horns, together with the noted words (in translation): The Scourge of God. The medallion image is based on a fresco of Atilla’s likeness, located on the wall of the Certosa di Pavia monastery in Pavia, Italy (a town south of Milan).
rulers of the Huns.
Balamber-370s-400, Uldin-400–412, Charaton-412–413, Octar and Rugila-413–430, Bleda and Attila- c. 435–445, Attila (sole ruler)- 445–453, Ellac-453–454, Dengizich-454–469,
Ernak-454–after 469

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