Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2018 i National Geographic History

May 1892 Manfred von Richthofen is born in Breslau to a rich, aristocratic family. His parents will enroll him in military school. August 1914 World War I begins. Richthofen sees action in the First West Prussian Cavalry Regiment on both western and eastern fronts. May 1915 Richthofen transfers to the Imperial German Army Air Service. In the fall he begins solo pilot training, crashing on his maiden flight. September 1916 Richthofen joins the new Jasta 2 squadron, where he tallies more than a dozen wins and begins to cultivate his Red Baron persona. April 21, 1918 Eighty kills later, and the uncontested ace of the skies, Richthofen is shot down by Allied fire and dies at age 25.…

Although England is probably better known for sipping tea, coffee played a major part in English history as well. London’s first coffeehouse opened in 1652 as the nation was recovering from a civil war. Balkan-born Pasqua Rosée began selling his brew after coming across the drink on his travels in the eastern Mediterranean. It was an immediate success. Within a few years, Rosée was reportedly selling more than 600 coffees a day. Copycat ventures appeared across the city. By 1656 another coffeehouse opened on Fleet Street. Over the next few decades, hundreds more would spring up. The exact origins of coffee are murky, but most agree that it came from Ethiopia. Tradition says that a goat herder named Kaldi discovered coffee in the ninth century. He noticed that his flock…

EPIDEMICS are as old as civilization: Signs of smallpox appear on 12th-century B.C. Egyptian mummies. Increased contact led to the spread of disease. In the sixth century A.D. the Plague of Justinian moved along trade routes, killing 25 million people across Asia, Africa, Arabia, and Europe. Eight centuries later, the Black Death wiped out 60 percent of Europe’s population. When Europeans settled in the Americas in the 16th and 17th centuries, they introduced smallpox, influenza, and measles to the native peoples, killing an estimated 90 percent of the population.…

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat (Genesis 3:6). The apple is most commonly associated with the item Eve plucked from the tree, but Genesis does not identify the fruit. The Hebrew Bible uses the word peri, which is a general term. Biblical scholars have claimed that the forbidden fruit could have been a fig, a pomegranate, a grape, and even wheat. The association comes from the Vulgate Latin version of the Bible, translated from Hebrew by St. Jerome in the late fourth century. In that…

PART AUTOBIOGRAPHY, part history, and part travelogue, Travels With Herodotus, by Polish writer Ryszard Kapuscinski (published in English in 2007, shortly after his death) embraced the multidisciplinary spirit of its subject. Following in the footsteps of the Greek writer, Kapuscinski reflects on how Herodotus’s interviews with people he met underlined the eternal challenge faced by historians: to craft an accurate narrative using differing, often contradictory viewpoints: “Everyone colors after his fashion, brews up his own mélange of reminiscences. Therefore, getting through to the past itself, the past as it really was, is impossible. What are available to us are only its various versions, more or less credible, one or another of them suiting us better at any given time. The past does not exist. There are only infinite renderings of…

NINTH CENTURY B.C. Oscan tribes are thought to have been the first to settle five hamlets, named Pompeii, based on the Oscan word for “five.” During the following centuries Greeks and Etruscans also occupy the site. FIFTH CENTURY B.C. The Samnites, an Oscanspeaking people, invade Campania. In the fourth century B.C. Pompeii is part of the Samnite confederation. 89 B.C. Pompeii is brought under full Roman control by General Sulla after its rebellion against Rome in the Social War. 80 B.C. Pompeii becomes a Roman colony. The city is Romanized, Latin replaces Oscan, and Pompeii adopts Roman voting patterns to elect magistrates. A.D. 59 A brawl breaks out at the Pompeii amphitheater, later recorded by the historian Tacitus. As a punishment, Nero bans games in Pompeii for 10 years. A.D.…

 A MEMBER OF an influential wealthy family of wine-traders, Marcus Holconius Rufus lived in Pompeii during the reign of Augustus. After beginning his political career around 20 B.C., Marcus held various powerful positions in the city. Among these was the all-important position of patron, whose role was to fight for Pompeii’s interests in Rome. He also financed a restoration of the Great Theater of Pompeii, which he considerably expanded. The city paid homage to him by erecting a magnificent statue on Via dell’Abbondanza in the first two decades of the first century A.D. The statue, discovered in 1853, is an audacious homage to the statue of Mars Ultor (Mars the Avenger) at the Forum of Augustus in Rome, familiar to Pompeii’s elite. The statue flatters Marcus by making him seem…

DIRT Y TR ICK S In A.D. 79 Marcus Cerrinius Vatia stood for the post of aedile. Although he seemed to have largely enjoyed the support of various individuals, he also received “endorsements” from less than desirable sources—a clear attempt by his rivals to discredit him. Marcum Cerrinium Vatiam aedilem oro vos faciatis, Faventinus cum suis rogat I urge that you make Marcus Cerrinius Vatia aedile. Faventinius and his friends ask it. Marcum Cerrinium Vatiam aedilem saccari rogant The sack loaders propose Marcus Cerrinius Vatia as aedile. Marcum Cerrinium Vatiam aedilem oro vos faciatis. seribibi universi rogant. scripsit Florus cum Fructo The late-night drinkers unanimously support Marcus Cerrinius Vatia for aedile. Florus and Fructus wrote this. Vatiam aedilem furunculi rogant The sneak-thieves propose Vatia as aedile. KEY ENDORSEMENTS Nobody could…

Painters were often charged with creating portraits of kings and queens to show them at their best. These works tended to be idealized, depicting the monarchs as dashing heroes or great beauties. Isabella’s court artist, John of Flanders (also known as Juan de Flandes), chose to emphasize different qualities in his subjects. John of Flanders came to Spain in the 1490s and became the official court painter for Isabella from 1498 until her death in 1504. He created many great works for the queen, including 47 panels of scenes from the lives of Christ and the Virgin. He also painted portraits of the royal family, including many of the queen. In her portraits, Isabella’s golden hair, blue eyes, and fair skin are all downplayed. As shown in the painting above,…

From their first encounter with Christopher Columbus, Isabella and Ferdinand held different opinions on his desire to sail west to reach Asia. Each one reflected the starkly different ways they saw the world. To Ferdinand, a son of eastern Spain, Aragon grew prosperous from commerce in the Mediterranean. He had little interest in Columbus’s project and did not hide his skepticism. Isabella knew otherwise; she understood that faster trade routes through the Atlantic could give Spain an edge over other powers and generate more wealth. She decided in 1492 to partly finance Columbus’s voyage. It was not a major outlay, just enough to sail three ships—the Santa María, the Pinta (“painted one”), and the Niña (“girl”)—and support a crew of about 90 men. The return on her modest investment was,…

Tucked away in otherworldly rock formations of the Sahara desert in North Africa are some of humanity’s most significant works of prehistoric cave art. Created during the millennia between 6000 B.C. and A.D. 100, more than 15,000 paintings and etchings of people and animals document what life was like for humans who lived in what is now Tassili-n-Ajjer, a vast plateau of eroded sandstone in southern Algeria, today a prized UNESCO World Heritage site. Desert Dispatches Unlike Stone Age cave art in Europe, Saharan rock art isn’t found in deep caves but tends to appear on accessible yet sheltered rock faces. These remarkable artworks remained largely unknown outside of Africa until the 19th century, when European travelers’ reports of them began to trickle back to Europe. Fascinated by African culture…

THE GREATEST ACE of all time first sat in a plane in 1915. Here, Richthofen describes one of his first experiences of flight: “I had lost all sense of direction above our own aerodrome . . . I began . . . to look over the side at the country. The men looked ridiculously small. The houses seemed to come out of a child’s toy box . . . Cologne was in the background. The cathedral looked like a little toy. It was a glorious feeling to be so high above the earth, to be master of the air . . . I felt extremely sad when my pilot thought it was time to go down again . . . In a flying machine one possesses a complete sense of…

“COFFEE-HOUSES . . . have produced very evil and dangerous effects . . . many Tradesmen and others, do therein mis-spend much of their time, which might . . . otherwise be imployed in and about their Lawful Callings and Affairs; but also, for that in such houses, and by occasion of the meetings of such persons therein, divers False, Malitious and Scandalous Reports are devised and spread abroad, to the Defamation of his Majesties Government . . . his Majesty hath thought it fit and necessary, that the said Coffee-houses be . . . put down and suppressed, and doth . . . Command all manner of persons, that they or any of them do not presume . . . to keep any pub-lick Coffee-house, or to utter or…

The place Eden is called yanna (the garden) in the Quran. Some Islamic traditions regard it as a physical location, while others believe it exists as a spiritual realm. The tree of knowledge The Quran speaks of only one tree in the garden: “O Adam! Dwell you, and your spouse, in the Garden, and eat thereof to your hearts’ content where you desire, but do not approach this tree,or you will both be among the wrongdoers” (Quran 2:35). The clothing As in Genesis, Adam and Eve eat the forbidden food and cover their nakedness: “So he made them fall, through deception. And when they tasted of the tree, their private parts became apparent to them, and they began to fasten together over themselves from the leaves of Paradise. And their…

CRITICAL APPRECIATION OF Herodotus has varied widely over time. Writing around 20 years after The Histories, Thucydides took a very different approach in his work. His History of the Peloponnesian War focuses only on political conflicts within a Greek context. He criticized Herodotus, calling him a mere storyteller. From then on, Herodotus’s reputation took a hit. Some critics called him the “father of lies” and claimed his histories were exaggerations and legends. Then, in the Renaissance, Herodotus’s work was rediscovered. The Histories was translated into Latin and, as stories of the conquest of America emerged, there was a marked return to Herodotus’s racier style. In the 18th century his prestige was confirmed, as some of what had been presumed to be fables turned out to be based on truth.…

FOLK REMEDIES IN BABYLONIA “[T]hey bear out the sick into the market-place; for of physicians they make no use. So people come up to the sick man and give advice about his disease, if any one himself has ever suffered anything like that which the sick man has, or saw any other who had suffered it; and coming near they advise and recommend those means by which they themselves got rid of a like disease or seen some other get rid of it: and to pass by the sick man in silence is not permitted to them, nor until one has asked what disease he has.” BOOK I ANIMAL LOVERS IN EGYPT “The cats when they are dead are carried away to sacred buildings in the city of Bubastis, where…

EROTIC FRESCOES and atria filled with fountains probably contribute to most popular notions of Pompeii. But the resort town was also divided by class. For all the fine dining in the villas off Via dell’Abbondanza, the residents of the poorest neighborhoods contented themselves with a thin barley mash. Only the rich could stand for office, and some candidates were endorsed for their social conscience: “Modestus for aedile,” reads one campaign slogan, “the underprivileged and the poor elect him.” Not even the destruction from Vesuvius was free of social distinctions. Research suggests that while the rich had other homes to escape to, and carts to take them there, poorer Pompeians may have remained in the city, bearing the brunt of the deadly wave of ash and toxic fumes.…

Isabella of Castile should never have been queen. Born on April 22, 1451, she was the second child of King John II of Castile. The king already had an heir, Henry, a 26-year-old son from his first marriage, making him Isabella’s half brother. The king’s second wife, Isabella of Portugal, would deliver a son, Alfonso, two years later, making Isabella third in line. Her sex and her birth order should have kept her from the throne, but Isabella was a woman who defied the odds. Tough, determined, and iron-willed, Queen Isabella of Castile deftly maneuvered dynastic feuds and political rivalries. Together with her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, she politically and religiously united Spain, routed the last Muslim stronghold in western Europe, and launched the age of exploration by backing…

MANY INSECTS were immigrants to America the same way that David Fairchild’s plants were, but Fairchild’s colleague (and sometime nemesis) Charles Marlatt saw disaster for the country if it carelessly let in invasive species. Marlatt had seen the damage insects could do in the 1880s when the San Jose scale, a yellow insect, infested and suffocated fields in California. He went to Asia to hunt for the scale’s natural predator and bring it back to North America. He found in China a candidate species: colorful red-and-black beetles, better known today as ladybugs. Marlatt’s were the first ladybugs in America, which was a remarkable accomplishment, considering that the entire colony—except for two survivors—had died. These last two, dubbed “Mr. and Mrs. Ladybug” by the press, were able to build a new…

The first pilots were pioneers, constantly pushing their planes—and their bodies—to the limit. In a time of conflict, technology advances in leaps and bounds, and when the First World War broke out in 1914, the nascent art of flying was rapidly transformed. Barely a year after hostilities began, a German Fokker monoplane fitted with a synchronized, forward-firing machine gun took to the air, and the revolution of air power and mechanized warfare was almost completed. The forward-firing gun meant it could fire through the propeller without damaging the blades. The first victory using this new weapon was claimed on July 1, 1915. Exactly one year later, when the Somme offensive opened, the British Army suffered 57,470 casualties during the first day alone. If this and other notoriously bloody battles of…

WHO KILLED the Red Baron? He was wounded in his cockpit by bullets either from a plane or from the ground, but this leaves many questions unanswered: Was he pursued by one or (as some say) two planes? Did a lone rifleman or a machine-gun unit bring him down? Did he die in the air, or was he killed on the ground? With so many contending theories, the identity of the Red Baron’s nemesis will probably never be known.…

3rd millennium B.C. The story of Enki and Ninhursag emerges, the first known literary text to mention Dilmun, a place of plenty where neither sickness nor death are known. 1800 B.C. The first full version of the Epic of Gilgamesh is written in Sumerian and includes references to Dilmun as a paradise and a lush, fertile garden. 14th century B.C. The Mesopotamian legend of Adapa is transcribed. In it, a mortal hero is warned by the gods not to eat divine food. Circa 586 B.C. The Babylonian king Nebuchadrezzar conquers Jerusalem and sends the Jews into exile in Babylon. There they are exposed to Mesopotamian tales and poems. 6th and 5th centuries B.C. During the Babylonian Exile and after the restoration of Jerusalem, Jewish scholars work on transcribing the history…

A hush fell on the group of British and Egyptian observers standing at the sealed doorway on November 26, 1922. Three weeks earlier, British archaeologist Howard Carter and his team had stumbled on a rubble-filled stairway in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Following the excavations of the late 1800s, many archaeologists thought the valley had yielded all its secrets. However, Carter had a hunch that there was still more to find. Egyptians began to bury their royalty in the Valley of the Kings during the New Kingdom (circa 1539-1075 B.C.). Carter was searching for the tomb of an obscure king from the 18th dynasty. The boy king has since become Egypt’s most famous pharaoh, but when Carter was digging, his name—Tutankhamun—was only spoken in scholarly circles. Having cleared…

WHEN HOWARD CARTER arrived in Luxor on October 28, 1922, to begin his final season in the Valley of the Kings, he brought a little pet with him: a canary he bought in Cairo to keep him company and brighten up his home with its singing. Carter’s Egyptian workmen became fond of the creature, regarding it as a symbol of good luck. Archaeologist Robert Winlock reported one of the workers saying: “This year we will find, inshallah [God willing], a tomb of gold.” In November Carter and his team discov ered Tutankhamun’s tomb. But then something hap pened that scared the Egyptians: The golden bird as they called Carter’s canary, was devoured by snake. Since the Egyptians believed that snakes grew inside the heads of the ancient kings, they thought…

Circa 484 B.C. Herodotus is born in Halicarnassus (modern-day Bodrum, Turkey), then controlled by Persia. Circa 454 B.C. Herodotus begins his travels. Interviewing those he meets, he gathers his impressions, which will become The Histories. Circa 445 B.C. Having traveled in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Africa, Herodotus reads from his work in progress in Athens. Circa 443 B.C. Herodotus emigrates to the Greek colony of Thurii in southern Italy. His Histories is completed circa 430 B.C. Circa 425 B.C. Herodotus dies, possibly in Thurii; the colony had granted him citizenship some years previously. Third century B.C. The Alexandrian editors of Herodotus’s work divide it into nine books, each one named for one of the Greek Muses.…

Every March, election fever gripped Pompeii, and the spring of A.D. 79 was no exception. That was the year one Marcus Cerrinius Vatia jostled with other hopefuls for the job of aedile, or junior magistrate—a significant step on the path to high office. Campaigns lasted for three weeks, during which time the city’s Forum, the streets, the sports ground (palaestra), and the bathhouses rang with gossip about the merits or failings of the candidates. Not one of them, of course, would have the chance to complete their terms or deliver on their campaign promises. The cataclysmic eruption of Vesuvius that August snuffed out the life of the city,but among the many objects and treasures preserved under 10 to 20 feet of ash was its extensive election graffiti. Known as programmata,…

1451 Isabella is born to John II of Castile and his wife Isabella of Portugal. Henry, John’s son from his first marriage, is his heir. 1454 After John II’s death, Henry becomes king. A weak ruler, he remains childless until 1462 when his daughter, Joanna, will be born. 1468 Rebellious nobles support Isabella’s claim to the throne. To hold power, Henry is forced to name her his heir over his daughter. 1469 Secretly marrying Ferdinand of Aragon, Isabella defies Henry, who had hoped to marry her to the Portuguese king. 1470 Isabella’s first child, a girl also named Isabella, is born. She will have four more children: John, Joanna, Maria, and Catherine. 1474 Henry IV dies, and soon after, Isabella proclaims herself queen of Castile. Her niece, Joanna, also claims…

The Virgin of Mercy Diego de la Cruz, a Spanish painter of Flemish origin, created this panel around 1485. It portrays the Virgin Mary offering protection under her outstretched arms. The royal family appear on the left side, and on the right are a group of Cistercian nuns. The painting was made for the abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in northern Spain (where it still hangs) and was probably paid for by Isabella’s powerful ally Cardinal Mendoza. The Virgin of the Catholic Monarchs Painted in the early 1490s, this panel can be found today in the Prado Museum, Madrid. It originally belonged to the Dominican convent of St. Thomas of Ávila. The Madonna and Child, St. Thomas, and St. Dominic are worshipped by the royal family.…

THE YOKOHAMA NURSERY COMPANY was one of the first Japanese companies to export Japanese sakura. The trees ended up not only in David Fairchild’s backyard in the United States but also in Turkey, Australia, and France. The company was founded in 1893 when the Yokohama Gardeners Association decided to form a business that would specialize in selling Japanese plants to the Western world. To promote their offerings, they created gorgeous catalogs (above). These hundred-page works of art featured original woodblock prints by Takejiro Hasegawa and numerous photographs. The catalogs also contained extensive descriptions of the plants, touting the pedigree of the ornamental plants, seeds, and bulbs. In addition to the imagery, the gardeners also provided detailed instructions on how to properly plant and tend each plant. The Yokohama Nursery Company…

FRENCH EXPLORER Henri Lhote fell in love with the Sahara as a young man, many years before he began working there in the 1950s at Tassilin-Ajjer. In 1929 he set out to explore the Hoggar plain in the central Sahara, a location where a popular novel of the day had situated the mythical city of Atlantis. But on the way there he had an accident on his camel and would have died of thirst if the local Tuareg people hadn’t saved him. The account of his rescue was the cover story of the July 1929 edition of the French weekly Le Petit Journal.…

REACHING FOR THE SKIES NEW YORK CITY’S Woolworth Building was the world’s tallest man-made structure in its day. Completed in 1913, the building was one of the first in the modern iteration of the New York City skyline. Architects, engineers, and industrialists pushed themselves with each new skyscraper to devise innovations to make each building stand taller and stronger. The result is a veritable timeline of architectural styles and trends: from fashionable art deco in the 1920s and ’30s through sleek modernism in the postwar era. ROME’S FUTURE WAS FEMALE WOMEN IN THE REPUBLIC were expected to do little but defer to men, but women’s power in Rome would grow in the coming centuries. When men left to fight the Punic Wars in the third century B.C., Roman women stepped…