Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children November/December 2016

1. For more than 650 years, present-day Austria was ruled by the Hapsburgs. During their reign, the family expanded their reach through Europe by arranging for their sons and daughters to marry members of other European royal families. 2. Vienna was the center for musical innovation and performance in the 18th and 19th centuries. Composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Johann Strauss II, and Franz Shubert were all Austrian-born and often used traditional songs from their country in their compositions. . Sir 3. Thanks to the tradition of painting the names and dates of death on the skulls of the deceased in the 1700s, modern-day anthropologists have been able to study the effects of genetics on evolution. 4. Unlike most Ferris wheels, the Wiener Riesenrad, which takes…

AUSTRIA Official Name: Republic of Austria Location: Austria is a landlocked country located in central Europe. It is bordered by Germany and the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland to the west. Area: 52,115 square miles (83,871 square kilometers) Population: 8,665,550 (July 2015 estimate) Government: federal parliamentary republic Capital: Vienna Terrain: The Alps dominate the country’s western and southern terrain. Austria is mostly flat or gently sloping along the eastern and northern edges. Highest Point: Grossglockner 12,461 feet (3,798 meters) Climate: Cold winters and moderate summers People: Austrians, 91.1 percent; former Yugoslavs, 4 percent; Turks 1.6 percent; Germans, 0.9 percent; other or unspecified, 2.4 percent Official Language: German National Day: October 26 Religions: Catholicism, 73.8 percent; Protestant,…

Hapsburg rulers in Europe bred Lipizzan horses for 400 years to use in the military and their riding school. These strong, graceful horses are famous for being able to perform physically challenging jumps and leaps called “Airs above the Ground” and classical dressage (training). The horses are called Lipizzans because they were bred in 1580 in Lippiza, a region in Italy with a reputation for producing strong, graceful horses. After World War I, about 100 Lipizzans were moved to the Piber Federal Stud Farm near Graz, Austria. These horses now train in Vienna. CHARACTERISTICS Colts are born dark, some even coal-black. They gradually lighten in color over five to seven years until they become snow-white (or actually very light gray) stallions. About one in 500 horses will stay black or…

Austria is only slightly larger than the state of South Carolina, but it was once the center of the largest and richest empire in all of continental Europe. The Celtic people were among its earliest known inhabitants, and they established an outpost on the Danube River around 400 B.C. The Danube, Europe’s second longest river, became an important highway for trade and travel. In 15 B.C., the Roman Empire claimed the land and controlled it until their empire collapsed around A.D. 400. Over the course of the next 800 years, many different ethnic groups ruled modern-day Austria. In 1273, Rudolf von Hapsburg took control of Austria’s territories. Hapsburg was the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a German monarchy that ruled much of central Europe. For the next 650 years,…

What do you think of when you think of music in Austria? You might think of classical composers, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Or you might remember watching the movie The Sound of Music, which takes place in Austria. But there’s much more to Austria’s musical heritage than just those two things. Little Old Lady, Who? One of the earliest types of music to come from Austria may not seem like music at all, but it is a type of singing: yodeling. Yodeling is a form of yelling that alternates in pitch from low to high. In Austria, it is called juchizn, and it was thought to have come from Alpine animal herders, who used yodeling to communicate or to call their animals to them. Other cultures around the world…

Cemeteries have always been final resting places for the deceased. Or have they? For hundreds of years, cemetery plots in Austria were rented, and bones were removed from graves after bodies had fully decomposed. Cemetery space was limited, and there simply wasn’t enough room to bury generations of Austria’s dead. Austrians were buried in Catholic Church cemeteries throughout the country. When faced with the problem of what to do with bones that were removed from their graves, churches began putting them in ossuaries — structures that store human bones. Austrians call them beinhauses (bone houses), karners, or charnels. Beginning in the 12th century, churches and monasteries throughout Austria used rooms, buildings, crypts, or subterranean chambers as ossuaries. Ossuaries were common throughout central Europe and South America and were used extensively…