“We have the payne and traveyle, rayne and wynd in the feldes”
Farmers sowing and plowing their fields
Japan and the East Coast of Asia
Japan and the East Coast of Asia
Italy, 1861
Italy, 1861
Ireland
Ireland
India in 1750
India in 1750
Ignatius of Loyola
Ignatius began his career as a very tough and gallant young Spaniard. He was clever and dexterous and inspired by a passion for pluck, hardihood, and rather showy glory. His love affairs were free and picturesque. In 1521 the French took the town of Pampeluna in Spain from the Emperor Charles V, and Ignatius was one of the defenders. His legs were smashed by a cannon-ball, and he was taken prisoner. One leg was badly set and had to be broken again, and these painful and complex operations nearly cost him his life.
Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England, who had begun his career with a book written against heresy, and who had been rewarded by the Pope with the title of “Defender of the Faith,” being anxious to divorce his first wife in favour of an animated young lady named Anne Boleyn,and wishing also to turn against the Emperor in favour of Francis I and to loot the vast wealth of the church in England, joined the company of Protestant princes in 1530. Sweden, Denmark, and Norway had already gone over to the Protestant side.
Germany after the Peace Treaty, 1919
Germany after the Peace Treaty, 1919
George Washington
George Washington
Frankish Dominions in the Time of Charles Martel
Frankish Dominions in the Time of Charles Martel
Francis I
Charles realized that his great empire was in very serious danger both from the west and from the east. On the west of him was his spirited rival, Francis I; to the east was the Turk in Hungary, in alliance with Francis and clamouring for certain arrears of tribute from the Austrian dominions.
France at the Close of the 10th Century
France at the Close of the 10th Century
European Trade Routes in the 14th Century
European Trade Routes in the 14th Century
Europe, 500 A.D.
Europe, 500 A.D.
Europe in the Time of Charles V
Europe in the Time of Charles V
Europe in 1714
Europe in 1714
Europe at the Fall of Constantinople
Europe at the Fall of Constantinople
Europe at the Death of Charlemagne
Europe at the Death of Charlemagne
Europe and Asia, 1200
Europe and Asia, 1200
Europe after the Congress of Vienna
Europe after the Congress of Vienna
England, 878 A.D
England, 878 A.D
England, 640 A.D.
England, 640 A.D.
Empire of Timurlane
Empire of Timurlane
Empire of Otto the Great
Empire of Otto the Great
Empire of Jengis Khan, 1227
Empire of Jengis Khan, 1227
Emperor William II
By one of those accidents in history that personify and precipitate catastrophes, the ruler of Germany, the emperor William II, embodied the new education of his people and the Hohenzollern tradition in the completest form. He came to the throne in 1888 at the age of twenty-nine; his father, Frederick III, had succeeded his grandfather, William I, in the March, to die in the June of that year. William II was the grandson of Queen Victoria on his mother’s side, but his temperament showed no traces of the liberal German tradition that distinguished the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family. His head was full of the frothy stuff of the new imperialism. He signalized his accession by an address to his army and navy; his address to his people followed three days later. A high note of contempt for democracy was sounded: “The soldier and the army, not parliamentary majorities, have welded together the German Empire. My trust is placed in the army.” So the patient work of the German schoolmasters was disowned, and the Hohenzollern declared himself triumphant.
Comparative Maps of Asia under Different Projections
Comparative Maps of Asia (a) as part of hemisphere (b) on Mercators projection to show relative sizes of Asiatic Russia and India in the two cases.
Chief Foreign Settlements in India, 17th Century
Chief Foreign Settlements in India, 17th Century
Charles V
Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Most of the figures that stand out in history, do so through some exceptional personal quality, good or bad, that makes them more significant than their fellows. But there was born at Ghent in Belgium in 1500 a man of commonplace abilities and melancholy temperament, the son of a mentally defective mother who had been married for reasons of state, who was, through no fault of his own, to become the focus of the accumulating stresses of Europe. The historian must give him a quite unmerited and accidental prominence side by side with such marked individualities as Alexander and Charlemagne and Frederick II. This was the Emperor Charles V. For a time he had an air of being the greatest monarch in Europe since Charlemagne. Both he and his illusory greatness were the results of the matrimonial statecraft of his grandfather, the Emperor Maximilian I (born 1459, died 1519).
Central Europe, 1648
Central Europe, 1648
Britain, France, and Spain in America, 1750
Britain, France, and Spain in America, 1750
Boston in 1775
Boston in 1775
Bismarck
Prussian affairs were then very much in the hands of a minister of the seventeenth-century type, Von Bismarck (count in 1865, prince in 1871), and he saw brilliant opportunities in this trouble. He became the champion of the German nationality in these duchies—it must be remembered that the King of Prussia had refused to undertake this rôle for democratic Germany in 1848—and he persuaded Austria to side with Prussia in a military intervention. Denmark had no chance against these Great Powers; she was easily beaten and obliged to relinquish the duchies. Then Bismarck picked a quarrel with Austria for the possession of these two small states. So he brought about a needless and fratricidal war of Germans for the greater glory of Prussia and the ascendancy of the Hohenzollern dynasty in Germany. German writers of a romantic turn of mind represent Bismarck as a great statesman planning the unity of Germany; but indeed he was doing nothing of the kind.
Benjamin Franklin
It is hard to measure the men of one period of history with those in another. Some writers, even American writers, impressed by the artificial splendours of the European courts and by the tawdry and destructive exploits of a Frederick the Great or a Great Catherine, display a snobbish shame of something homespun about these makers of America. They feel that Benjamin Franklin at the court of Louis XVI, with his long hair, his plain clothes, and his pawky manner, was sadly lacking in aristocratic distinction. But stripped to their personalities, Louis XVI was hardly gifted enough or noble-minded enough to be Franklin’s valet.
Arabia and Adjacent Countries
Arabia and Adjacent Countries
American Colonies, 1760
American Colonies, 1760
Africa, 1914
Africa, 1914
Africa in the Middle of 19th Century
Africa in the Middle of 19th Century
Tsar Alexander I
In the Tsar Alexander I, who was never direct, this direct new imperialism met the old. Hitherto the kings and potentates of the world had taken themselves in good faith, had had the support of religion in their consciences, had believed they were serving God in their kingship, and that they were necessary to mankind and beneficial to mankind. In many cases they were no doubt swayed by very mixed motives, his majesty had “weaknesses,” his majesty almost always had a sensitive personal vanity. Sometimes, indeed, a born rascal like Charles II of England would have the grace or the gracelessness to laugh at himself, but the generality of kings and tyrants had the profoundest faith in themselves, and were sustained by the sincere faith of their loyal supporters. The emperor Charles V and his son Philip II, Charles I of England, Louis XIV, and the Tsar Alexander were all inspired by a complete assurance of their own righteousness, were convinced that opposition to them was sheer wickedness, wickedness to be overcome in any way and punished with the utmost severity.
Tribal Gods of the 19th Century
Throughout the nineteenth century, and particularly throughout its latter half, there has been a great working up of this nationalism in the world. All men are by nature partisans and patriots, but the natural tribalism of men in the nineteenth century was unnaturally exaggerated, it was fretted and over-stimulated and inflamed and forced into the nationalist mould. Nationalism was taught in schools, emphasized by newspapers, preached and mocked and sung into men. Men were brought to feel that they were as improper without a nationality as without their clothes in a crowded assembly.
Travels of Marco Polo
Travels of Marco Polo
American Indian Picture-Writing
Specimens of American Indian picture-writing No. 1, painted on a rock on the shore of Lake Superior, records an expedition across the lake, in which five canoes took part. The upright strokes in each indicate the number of the crew, and the bird represents a chief, “The Kingfisher.” The three circles (suns) under the arch (of heaven) indicate that the voyage lasted three days, and the tortoise, a symbol of land, denotes a safe arrival. No. 2 is a petition sent to the United States Congress by a group of Indian tribes, asking for fishing rights in certain small lakes. The tribes are represented by their totems, martens, bear, manfish, and catfish, led by the crane. Lines running from the heart and eye of each animal to the heart and eye of the crane denote that they are all of one mind; and a line runs from the eye of the crane to the lakes, shown in the crude little “map” in the lower left-hand corner.
Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great (silver coin of Lysimachus, 321-281 B.C.)
Ægean Civilization (Map)
Ægean Civilization
A Reindeer Age Masterpiece
These late Palæolithic people not only drew remarkably well for our information, and with an increasing skill as the centuries passed, but they have also left us other information about their lives in their graves. They buried. They buried their dead, often with ornaments, weapons, and food; they used a lot of colour in the burial, and evidently painted the body. From that one may infer that they painted their bodies during life. Paint was a big fact in their lives. They were inveterate painters; they used black, brown, red, yellow, and white pigments, and the pigments they used endure to this day in the caves of France and Spain. Of all modern races, none have shown so pictorial a disposition; the nearest approach to it has been among the American Indians.
A Menhir of the Neolithic Period
A Carved Statue (“Menhir”) of the Neolithic Period—a Contrast to the Freedom and Vigour of Palæolithic Art.
Yuan Chwang’s Route from China to India
Yuan Chwang’s Route from China to India
Wars of the Greeks and Persians (Map)
Wars of the Greeks and Persians (Map)
Tracks of Migrating and Raiding Peoples, 1-700 A.D.
Tracks of Migrating and Raiding Peoples, 1-700 A.D
Time-chart 6000 B.C. to A.D.
Time-chart 6000 B.C. to A.D.
The World According to Herodotus
The World According to Herodotus
The World According to Eratosthenes, 200 B.C.
The World According to Eratosthenes, 200 B.C.
The Western Mediterranean, 800-600 B.C.
The Western Mediterranean, 800-600 B.C.
The Sub-Man Pithecanthropus
Possible Appearance of the Sub-man Pithecanthropus. The face, jaws, and teeth are mere guess work. The creature may have been much less human looking than this.
The Spread of Buddhism
The Spread of Buddhism
The Rise of Buddhism
The Rise of Buddhism
The Land of the Hebrews
The Known World, about 250 B.C
The Known World, about 250 B.C
The Empire of Darius
The Eastern Empire and the Sassanids