Innholdsfortegnelse for May - June 2016 i National Geographic History

Alexander Hamilton is having a moment. He has taken center stage in the American consciousness, thanks to two men: Ron Chernow, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and historian, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony-winning playwright, composer, and performer. The two came together to create a Broadway musical about the “ten-dollar Founding Father” that brilliantly combines hip-hop with history. At the heart of the show is the question of who tells a person’s story after death. Chernow and Miranda owe a debt of gratitude to both Alexander and Eliza Hamilton for ensuring that Hamilton’s story endures. Alexander’s prolific writings left behind a massive record of his adult life: his thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Eliza curated and preserved this material after his death, a massive undertaking that took decades. Aaron Burr once said, “Things written remain,”…

When she was seven months pregnant, Caterina seized control of Rome’s Castel Sant’ Angelo. Toward the end of 1499, a woman stood atop the walls of the Rocca di Ravaldino in Forlì, some 185 miles north of Rome. The troops of the Borgias, a powerful rival family, were holding her children hostage and threatening to kill them if she did not yield the fortress and her lands to them. But she refused, and, pointing at her womb, cried: “Kill them if you will, I have the means to make many more! You will never make me surrender.” The tale may well be apocryphal but, given what is known about the extraordinary Caterina Sforza, it has a ring of truth about it. One of the most exceptional figures of the Italian…

“IF I MUST DIE, let me die like a man,” Caterina Sforza said when Cesare Borgia’s troops besieged Ravaldino. Caterina commanded 1,000 men and refused to listen to the offers of peace the pope’s son sent. His response was to offer a reward of 10,000 ducats for her, dead or alive. Some accounts claim that the same night she was captured, Caterina and Cesare became lovers, recognizing in one another the very same ruthlessnesss and ambition.…

The 1920s marked a golden age in high-profile archaeological discoveries. Beginning with Howard Carter’s landmark 1922 discovery of the tomb of the Egyptian king Tutankhamun, the decade would end with another stunning find: Leonard Woolley’s discovery of intact Mesopotamian royal tombs dating back more than 4,000 years in the ancient city of Ur, located 140 miles southeast of Babylon in modern-day Iraq. The tombs were the work of the ancient culture of Sumer that had flourished at the dawn of civilization. The discovery of the tombs dominated headlines on both sides of the Atlantic, not only for the quantity and craftsmanship of the objects found but also for the light they shed on the grisly nature of Sumerian burial practices. The finds included exquisitely crafted jewelry and musical instruments, as…

Woolley was assisted at Ur by Katharine Keeling, who later became his wife. Her presence at the site was regarded as unseemly by Woolley’s superiors. In 1926 the director of the Penn Museum, C. B. Gordon, wrote to Woolley: “Tourists and others returning from Iraq and Palestine make [the expedition at Ur] an important part of their recollections . . . Perhaps the presence of a lone woman with four men in camp makes a more interesting figure for some of them than the outline of ziggurats. In any case I should be a little apprehensive that a woman in that situation might incur the risk of becoming the subject of inconsiderate remarks . . . Perhaps you will wish to give the matter your best consideration with a view…

June Persia’s King Xerxes I crosses the Dardanelles, leading his army in a rapid advance west into the lands of the Greek city-states. August At the end of the month the Persian forces score two major victories: one at the Thermopylae pass and the other at Artemisium. September Athens is evacuated as the Persians advance. At the end of the month Xerxes is lured into the Salamis Strait, where he suffers a crushing defeat. October The Persians withdraw to Asia. The Greek general Themistocles is unable to convince the Spartans to fight on and attempt to block Xerxes’ retreat.…

January 14, 44 B.C. Emerging as the victor in the civil war against Pompey and his sons, Julius Caesar is appointed consul and dictator for the fifth time. February 14, 44 B.C. Caesar is appointed perpetual dictator by the Senate, a decision that confirms fears among his enemies that Caesar has tyrannical aspirations. March 15, 44 B.C. Caesar attends a meeting in the Theater of Pompey where he is stabbed to death by a group of senators led by Cassius and Brutus. March 17, 44 B.C. All of Caesar’s actions while in government are approved by the Senate, and Mark Antony persuades Brutus to give Caesar a state funeral. March 20, 44 B.C. Julius Caesar’s body is carried to the Forum, where Mark Antony gives a speech that inflames the…

Circa 1718 The fourth son of 11 children, James Hamilton is born in Scotland. To find his own fortune, he leaves Scotland for St. Kitts in 1741. Circa 1729 Rachel Faucette is born on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies. After her parents’ formal separation, Rachel and her mother move to St. Croix. 1745 After her father’s death, Rachel marries Johann Michael Lavien and has a son. Unable to endure a miserable marriage, in 1750 she abandons them for St. Kitts. 1750s Rachel and James Hamilton meet and become romantically involved. They move to Nevis and have two sons together, James Jr. and Alexander. 1759 Johann Michael Lavien files a formal petition to divorce Rachel. After the divorce, he may marry, but Rachel is legally prohibited from…

Late 1800s Johannes Hansen, a tenant farmer, carries out some amateur excavations on the Oseberg farm. 1903 Knut Rom buys the Oseberg farm. He recovers a fragment of the ship’s prow during his excavations. 1904-07 Gabriel Gustafson excavates a funerary ship, uncovering the remains of two high-ranking women. 1926-27 The Viking Ship Museum is built in Oslo. The Oseberg ship is exhibited there, along with the Gokstad ship. During the late 19th century, a young Norwegian farmer, Johannes Hansen, arrived in the United States where—like many Scandinavians of the period—he had high hopes of starting a new life. However, an encounter with a fortune-teller there made him change his plans. He learned that he need not suffer hardships in America to get rich because hidden on his farm back home…

FOR REASONS that are unclear, nearly half of the individuals had been beheaded, as the cut across the top of this neck vertebra shows (above). All the bodies found were males under 45, taller than average, and muscular—a profile suggesting they were gladiators or soldiers. Documents have long shown how Romans were forever on the move across their sprawling empire 1,800 years ago. Now historians have scientific proof too: Studies carried out on headless skeletons in England reveal they belonged to people who came from all over Europe. At least one may have come to this chilly northern outpost from as far away as modern-day Saudi Arabia. When archaeologists unearthed 80 bodies in the northern English city of York in 2004 and 2005, they were hardly surprised by the presence…

1463 Caterina Sforza is born, the illegitimate daughter of Galeazzo Maria Sforza, future Duke of Milan, and his lover, Lucrezia Landriani. 1484 Caterina defends the interests of her husband Girolamo Riario in Rome following the death of Pope Sixtus IV. 1488 Girolamo is assassinated, and Caterina marries again. She puts the interests of her new husband, Giacomo Feo, before those of her son. 1497-99 Widowed in 1495, Caterina marries Giovanni de’ Medici in 1497. After his death, she faces strong opposition from the Borgias. 1500-1509 Following captivity in Rome, Caterina retires to a villa in Florence, where she dies at age 46 of pneumonia.…

In a letter he wrote to his friend Atticus just two months after Caesar’s death, the lawyer and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero condemned the disastrous Ides of March conspiracy. The “liberators,” he wrote, acted “with the courage of true men but the brains of children.” Not only was it poorly planned, but the assassination had probably been unnecessary: After all, it was unlikely Caesar would have returned from his next ambitious campaign in the eastern Mediterranean. All Brutus and his band had to do was let him die abroad. Cicero also took aim at the rebels’ lack of political realism. It was only once they had killed the dictator that they discovered that Rome’s people were not behind them. That lack of public enthusiasm was unsurprising. For all their talk…

TO SAY ALEXANDER HAMILTON had a way with words would be a gross understatement. He was a prolific writer, gifted with an almost unmatched ability to communicate by putting a pen to paper. Famous for his political writings, few know that Hamilton was also a poet. As a young man in St. Croix, he published his poetry in the local paper, the Royal Danish American Gazette. In 1771 he published a pair of love poems in the paper, one devoted to pure, idealized love and the other to lust. After he moved to the colonies, Hamilton used poetry to woo his wife, Elizabeth “Eliza” Schuyler. She loved these poems so much that she kept one in a little bag she wore around her neck until her death at age 97.…

RON CHERNOW is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of five previous books. His first, The House of Morgan, won the National Book Award. His books Alexander Hamilton and Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr., were both nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography. Washington: A Life received the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for biography. His best-selling biography of Alexander Hamilton, from which portions of this article were excerpted, inspired the smash Broadway musical Hamilton. Chernow lives in Brooklyn, New York.…

IT IS NOT KNOWN for sure why the Oseberg ship was first built. Was it originally intended to be a lavish burial chamber or a working ship? According to the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway, where it is now on display, scholars believe that the Oseberg ship may have been built somewhere in western Norway, around 820. However, the Oseberg ship’s design yields no clues to its intended function. The design closely resembles that of a typical working Viking ship (above), which could be powered by either sails or oars, but no solid proof exists to show the boat ever went to sea. 1 Hull Sporting a keel of 70 feet, the light, narrow boat was only 16 feet wide. The planks were fixed into place over oak ribs.…

DESPITE ITS ISOLATED position on the storm-tossed fringes of the Roman Empire, Eboracum (modern-day York) was a lively, cosmopolitan garrison city. Recent research suggests that, in addition to European immigrants, some York residents were also of African descent. The city was the setting for one of the empire’s most momentous events: Here, in 306, Constantine (right) was proclaimed emperor by his troops. He immediately headed south to eliminate his rivals, a struggle concluding with the founding of Constantinople in 330.…

RENAISSANCE ARTISTS were deeply attracted to Caterina. Sandro Botticelli is said to have depicted her as one of the muses in his painting “Primavera” (1477-1482). In Lorenzo di Credi’s magnificent oil painting (left) the 20-year-old Caterina is portrayed with a beauty she preserved well into her later years. A book attributed to her, Experimenti della excellentissima signora Caterina da Forlì, suggests beauty and learning mattered to her as much as power. Recipes for skin and hair, and general beauty tips, combine with her commentaries on botany and astrology.…

IN THE MIDDLE AGES crying babies were not merely an annoyance, they were dangerous and linked to witchcraft. In a theological and legal treatise from 1486, the Malleus maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), the Dominican inquisitors Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger linked infant crying to black magic. Many other texts speak of the demonic possession of children, whom malign forces turned into monsters or other devilish creatures. Unbaptized children ran the highest risk for corruption. To protect infants against evil spirits and diseases, amulets made of materials such as malachite were hung from their cribs. Newborns were tightly swaddled—as shown in this detail of a 14th-century painting by Giotto—in part to prevent them from crying. In Spain, in 1482, the chronicles record the death of the son of one Miguel…

Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes—to many, these Greek thinkers are the founding fathers of modern mathematics. But in fact, by the time these brilliant minds were working on their theorems, complex mathematical systems had already been well established across the Mediterranean for many centuries,and counting systems for several millennia. Mathematics was an engine for progress in the ancient world. Without it, a society could not collect taxes, keep records of produce, or design architectural marvels such as the pyramids. In his travels through Egypt in the fifth century B.C., the great Greek historian Herodotus—known as the father of history—refers in detail to the long-standing accounting tradition in the land of the pharaohs.In the reign of “King Sesostris,”for example, the country was “divided . . . among all the Egyptians by giving each…

Leonard Woolley excavated 16 tombs that he identified as royal because of the lavish grave goods found there as well as evidence of mass human sacrifice. The exact nature of the relationship between the main occupant of the chambers and their entourage is, however, not entirely clear. In most cases, the “royal” figures have not been identified. In fact, only two royal bodies can be identified with any certainty. One is Queen Puabi in tomb PG800, who was identified by the seal found near her body. The excavations in the necropolis did bring to light various inscriptions, although they have not been matched to specific tombs. These writings identify Ur-Pabilsag who reigned around the period 2600–2450 B.C., Meskalamdug, his son Mesannepadda, and his sons A’anepada and Meski’ag-Nanna, who ruled sometime…

What shall withstand the torrent of his sway When dreadful o’er the yielding shores, The impetuous tide of battle roars, And sweeps the weak opposing mounds away? So Persia, with resistless might, Rolls her unnumber’d hosts of heroes to the fight. Aeschylus’ poetic words describe a massive force of Persian soldiers who threaten to overrun the city-states of Ancient Greece.The verse comes from his play The Persians, written in 472 B.C., which describes the outcome of a crucial battle in the conflict between Persia and Greek city-states. One of the earliest documented naval battles, the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. marked a crucial turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars, where the tide literally turned in favor of the Greeks. In 480 B.C. the Persian king Xerxes I embarked on…

According to the chronicler Francisco López de Gómara, Cortés had a fondness for the ladies; he was “very given to women and always gave into temptation.” His biography abounds in romantic entanglements. In 1504, for instance, he was unable to leave for the Indies because of the injuries he suffered after falling off a wall during a romantic tryst. Throughout his career, Cortés's eventful and colorful personal life revealed a manipulative streak. In 1514 he wooed a young Spanish woman named Catalina Suárez, a relative of Governor Diego Velázquez. Cortés might have been more interested in her family's connections and power than in her heart. After a prolonged courtship, the two married, and Cortés received a promotion. But Cortés would not prove faithful, especially after the conquest of Mexico. Malinche,…

Few figures in American history have aroused such visceral feelings as Alexander Hamilton. In his day, Hamilton’s vision of American nationalism, with states subordinate to a strong central government and led by a vigorous executive branch, aroused fears of a reversion to royal British ways. For another group of naysayers, Hamilton’s unswerving faith in a professional military converted him into a potential despot. Even some Hamilton admirers have been unsettled by a faint tincture of something foreign in this West Indian transplant. In all probability, Alexander Hamilton is the foremost political figure in American history who never attained the presidency, yet he probably had a much deeper and more lasting impact than many who did. One of the prime movers behind the Constitutional Convention, main author of The Federalist Papers,…

The Welsh are famously fine singers and regardless of faith it is wonderfully uplifting to visit Brecon Cathedral in Wales and hear its celebrated choir perform. As the melodious notes soar to the rafters one’s eye may be drawn to the majestic array of military standards that hangs there and in particular to a framed faded flag. This is the Queen’s Colour of Britain’s First Battalion of the 24th Regiment of Foot, the South Wales Borderers, and its fragile condition speaks to the dramatic events that link this small Welsh town with what is now the Zulu heartland of Durban in South Africa. In 1879 Durban was the capital of the British colony of Natal, part of the vast empire ruled over by Queen Victoria. To tighten the crown’s grip…

EVEN AFTER the storming of the Bastille in 1789, few suspected that France’s revolutionaries would go so far as to execute the king. Following his failed attempt to escape France, however, the captured Louis XVI—now known as plain Louis Capet—was put on trial. The great spectacle began in 1792, and Louis’s fate at the guillotine was sealed by a majority vote. France’s neighboring powers trembled, and European history was never the same again. The Royal Wedding of Ramses II Ramses’ sumptuous wedding in 1245 b.c. was a canny move: His bride was a princess of the Hittite Empire, with which Egypt had just signed a highly beneficial peace treaty. David and Goliath To defeat the Philistines in the famous biblical tale, the shepherd David topples the giant Goliath, a story…