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March 2

March 2

March 2 is the 61st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (62nd in leap years). There are 304 days remaining.

Events

- 986 - Louis V becomes King of the Franks.
- 1717 - The Loves of Mars and Venus becomes the first ballet performed in England.
- 1791 - Long-distance communication speeds up with the unveiling of a semaphore machine in Paris.
- 1807 - The U.S. Congress passes an act to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United States ... from any foreign kingdom, place, or country."
- 1836 - Texas Revolution: Declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico.
- 1855 - Alexander II becomes Tsar of Russia.
- 1861 - Nevada Territory and Dakota Territory are organized as political divisions of the United States.
- 1861 - Emancipation reform of 1861 in Russia: Tsar Alexander II signed the emancipation reform into law.
- 1877 - U.S. presidential election, 1876: The U.S. Congress declares Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the election even though Samuel J. Tilden had won the popular vote on November 7, 1876 (Reconstruction ends).
- 1888 - The Convention of Constantinople is signed, guaranteeing free maritime passage through the Suez Canal during war and peace.
- 1899 - In Washington State, USA, Mount Rainier National Park is established.
- 1901 - The U.S. Congress passes the Platt amendment, limiting the autonomy of Cuba as a condition for the withdrawal of American troops.
- 1903 - In New York City the Martha Washington Hotel opens, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
- 1917 - The enactment of the Jones-Shafroth Act grants Puerto Ricans United States citizenship.
- 1917 - Nicholas II of Russia abdicates the throne in favor of his brother Michael.
- 1919 - The first Communist International meets in Moscow.
- 1933 - King Kong premieres in New York City.
- 1939 - Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli is elected Pope and takes the name Pius XII.
- 1943 - World War II: Battle of the Bismarck Sea - United States and Australian forces sink Japanese convoy ships.
- 1946 - Ho Chi Minh is elected the President of North Vietnam.
- 1949 - Captain James Gallagher lands his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas after completing the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
- 1955 - King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia abdicates the throne in favor of his father, King Norodom Suramarit.
- 1956 - Morocco declares its independence from France.
- 1959 - Miles Davis holds the first recording session for Kind of Blue at Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York, NY.
- 1962 - In Hershey, Pennsylvania, Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia 76ers scores 100 points against the New York Knicks, breaking several National Basketball Association records.
- 1962 - In Burma, the army led by General Ne Win seizes power in a coup.
- 1963 - Release of Please Please Me in the United Kingdom, the first LP from The Beatles.
- 1969 - In Toulouse, France the first test flight of the Concorde is conducted.
- 1969 - Soviet and Chinese forces clash at a border outpost on the Ussuri River.
- 1972 - The Pioneer 10 spaceprobe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
- 1978 - Czech Vladimír Remek becomes the first non-Russian or non-American to go into space, when he is launched aboard Soyuz 28.
- 1985- TV anime series Mobile Suit Z Gundum broadcasts its first episode in Japan.
- 1987- Chrysler acquires American Motors
- 1989 - Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century.
- 1990 - Nelson Mandela elected deputy President of the African National Congress.
- 1992 - Moldova joins the UN
- 1995 - Nick Leeson is arrested for his role in the collapse of Barings Bank.
- 1995 - Yahoo! is incorporated, establishing the Internet Portal as a model.
- 1998 - Data sent from the Galileo spaceprobe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
- 2002 - U.S. invasion of Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda begins, ending on March 19) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, with 11 allied troop fatalities.
- 2003 The first International Symposium on Taiwan Sign Language Linguistics is held at Chung Cheng University.
- 2004 - Voters in the U.S. state of Georgia vote on a referendum concerning its Confederacy-derived flag.
- 2004 - Disgruntled by the state's education act (Act 60), residents of Killington, Vermont vote to become part of New Hampshire.
- 2004 - War in Iraq: Al Qaeda carries out the Ashoura Massacre in Iraq, killing 170 and wounding over 500.
- 2004 - War in Iraq: A United Nations report from the weapons inspection teams states that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction of any significance after 1994, despite President Bush's objection to the contrary before the invasion.

Births

- 1316 - King Robert II of Scotland, (d. 1390)
- 1409 - John II of Alençon, French soldier (d. 1476)
- 1459 - Pope Adrian VI (d. 1523)
- 1545 - Thomas Bodley, English diplomat and library founder (d. 1613)
- 1578 - George Sandys, English colonist and poet (d. 1644)
- 1705 - William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, Scottish judge and politician (d. 1793)
- 1770 - Louis Gabriel Suchet, French marshal (d. 1826)
- 1779 - Joel Roberts Poinsett, American statesman and botanist (d. 1851)
- 1793 - Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas (d. 1863)
- 1800 - Evgeny Baratynsky, Russian poet (d. 1844)
- 1810 - Pope Leo XIII, (d. 1903)
- 1820 - Multatuli, Dutch writer (d. 1887)
- 1824 - Bedrich Smetana, Czech composer (d. 1884)
- 1829 - Carl Schurz, German revolutionary and American statesman (d. 1906)
- 1849 - Robert Means Thompson, U.S. naval officer (d. 1930)
- 1859 - Sholom Aleichem, Russian Yiddish novelist (d. 1916)
- 1860 - Susanna M. Salter, Mayor of Argonia, Kansas (d. 1961)
- 1876 - Pope Pius XII, (d. 1958)
- 1900 - Kurt Weill, German composer (d. 1950)
- 1902 - Moe Berg, baseball player and spy (d. 1972)
- 1904 - Dr. Seuss, American author (d. 1991)
- 1908 - Walter Bruch, German engineer (d. 1990)
- 1909 - Mel Ott, baseball player (d. 1958)
- 1914 - Martin Ritt, American director (d. 1990)
- 1917 - Desi Arnaz, Cuban-born actor, bandleader, and musician (d. 1986)
- 1919 - Jennifer Jones, American actress
- 1923 - Robert H. Michel, American politician
- 1926 - Murray Rothbard, American economist (d. 1995)
- 1930 - John Cullum, American actor and singer
- 1931 - Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Soviet Union, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1931 - Tom Wolfe, American author
- 1935 - Al Waxman, Canadian actor (d. 2001)
- 1937 - Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of Algeria
- 1940 - Tony Croatto, Italian-born singer and composer (d. 2005)
- 1942 - John Irving, American author
- 1942 - Lou Reed, American singer and guitarist
- 1943 - Peter Straub, American author
- 1944 - Uschi Glas, German actress
- 1948 - Rory Gallagher, Irish guitarist
- 1948 - Jeff Kennett, Australian politician
- 1949 - Eddie Money, New York police officer and singer
- 1949 - JPR Williams, Welsh rugby player
- 1949 - Gates McFadden, American actress
- 1950 - Karen Carpenter, American singer and drummer (d. 1983)
- 1952 - Mark Evanier, American writer
- 1952 - Laraine Newman, American actress and comedian
- 1955 - Shoko Asahara, Japanese religious leader
- 1956 - Mark Evans, Australian bassist (AC/DC)
- 1958 - Ian Woosnam, Welsh golfer
- 1962 - Morioka Hiroyuki, Japanese writer
- 1962 - Jon Bon Jovi, American singer, songwriter, and actor
- 1964 - Megan Leigh, American actress (d. 1990)
- 1973 - Trevor Sinclair, English footballer
- 1974 - Monika Niederstätter, Italian athlete
- 1977 - Chris Martin, British musician (Coldplay)
- 1977 - Heather McComb, American actress
- 1977 - Andrew Strauss, English cricketer
- 1979 - Damien Duff, Irish footballer
- 1981 - Bryce Dallas Howard, American actress
- 1982 - Kevin Kurányi, German footballer
- 1982 - Ben Roethlisberger, American football player
- 1982 - Corey Webster, American football player
- 1985 - Robert Iler, American actor
- 1985 - Reggie Bush, American football player

Deaths

- 855 - Lothar, King of the Franks and Holy Roman Emperor (b. 795)
- 1316 - Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert I of Scotland (b. 1296)
- 1572 - Mem de Sá, Portuguese Governor-General of Brazil
- 1589 - Alessandro Cardinal Farnese, Italian cardinal (b. 1520)
- 1729 - Francesco Bianchini, Italian philosopher and scientist (b. 1662)
- 1730 - Pope Benedict XIII (b. 1649)
- 1755 - Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon, French writer (b. 1675)
- 1758 - Pierre Guérin de Tencin, French cardinal (b. 1679)
- 1791 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (b. 1703)
- 1793 - Carl Gustaf Pilo, Swedish-born artist
- 1797 - Horace Walpole, English politican and writer (b. 1717)
- 1830 - Samuel Thomas von Sömmering, German physician (b. 1755)
- 1835 - Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1768)
- 1840 - Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers, German astronomer (b. 1758)
- 1865 - Carl Sylvius Völkner, German missionary to New Zealand
- 1880 - Sir John MacNeill, Irish civil engineer (b. 1790)
- 1895 - Berthe Morisot, French painter (b. 1841)
- 1921 - King Nicholas I of Montenegro (b. 1841)
- 1930 - D. H. Lawrence, English writer (b. 1885)
- 1938 - Ben Harney, American composer and pianist (b. 1871)
- 1939 - Howard Carter, British archaeologist (b. 1874)
- 1953 - Jim Lightbody, American runner (b. 1882)
- 1960 - Stanisław Taczak, Polish general, commander-in-chief of the Greater Poland Uprising (b.1874)
- 1975 - Josiah Mwangi Kariuki, Kenyan politician (b. 1929)
- 1982 - Philip K. Dick, American author (b. 1928)
- 1987 - Randolph Scott, American actor and director (b. 1898)
- 1991 - Serge Gainsbourg, French singer (b. 1928)
- 1992 - Sandy Dennis, American actress (b. 1937)
- 1999 - Dusty Springfield, English singer (b. 1939)
- 2001 - John Diamond, British journalist (b. 1953)
- 2003 - Hank Ballard, American musician (b. 1927)
- 2003 - Malcolm Williamson, Australian composer, (b. 1931)
- 2004 - Mercedes McCambridge, American actress (b. 1916)
- 2004 - Marge Schott, baseball team owner (b. 1928)
- 2005 - Rick Mahler, baseball player (b. 1953)

Holidays and observances

- Bahá'í Faith — Feast of 'Alá (Loftiness) - First day of the 19th month of the Bahá'í Calendar.
- Bahá'í Faith — Beginning of the Fast (sunrise to sunset fast for 19 days).
- Church of England — Saint Chad's Day.

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/2 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.imdb.com/OnThisDay?day=2&month=March IMDb (Internet Movie Database): On This Day]
- [http://www.tnl.net/when/3/2 Today in History: March 2] ----- March 1 - March 3 - February 2 - April 2 -- listing of all days ko:3월 2일 ms:2 Mac ja:3月2日 simple:March 2 th:2 มีนาคม

March 2

March 2 is the 61st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (62nd in leap years). There are 304 days remaining.

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays and observances

External links

Leap year

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:
- The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox.
- The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.
- The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. Image:Gregoriancalendarleap.png

Which day is the leap day?

The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days.

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Revised Julian Calendar

The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath.

Hindu Calendar

In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

Iranian calendar

The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years.

Long term leap year rules

The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gregorian+calendar%22+error+%22leap+year%22+4000]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mleapyr.html].) However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably: #Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. #Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years.

Marriage proposal

There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may only make marriage proposals in leap years.

Saint Patrick and the leap year

:Saint Patrick, having driven the frogs out of the bogs was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by Saint Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of popping the question. :Saint Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when Saint Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." Saint Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." Saint Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988) According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February.

Birthdays

A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Category:Calendars Category:Units of time als:Schaltjahr ko:윤년 ja:閏年 simple:Leap year th:ปีอธิกสุรทิน

986

Events

- March 2 - Louis V becomes King of the Franks
- End of the reign of Emperor Kazan, emperor of Japan
- Emperor Ichijō ascends to the throne of Japan
- Explorer Bjarni Herjólfsson becomes the first inhabitant of the Old World to sight North America
- Sweyn Forkbeard becomes King of Denmark

Births

Deaths

- March 2 - Lothair, King of the Franks, Holy Roman Emperor
- May 25 - 'Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi, Muslim Astronomer - discoverer of the Andromeda Galaxy.
- November 1 - Harold I of Denmark Category:986 ko:986년

Franks

:Francia redirects here. For the Bolognese artist, see Francesco Raibolini. The Franks or the Frankish people were one of several west Germanic tribes who entered the late Roman Empire from Frisia as foederati and established a lasting realm (sometimes referred to as Francia) in an area that covers most of modern-day France and the western regions of Germany (Franconia, Rhineland, Hesse), forming the historic kernel of both these two modern countries. The conversion to Christianity of the pagan Frankish king Clovis was a crucial event in the history of Europe. The Frankish realm underwent many partitions and repartitions, since the Franks divided their property among surviving sons, and lacking a broad sense of a res publica, they conceived of the realm as a large extent of private property. This practice explains in part the difficulty of describing precisely the dates and physical boundaries of any of the Frankish kingdoms and who ruled the various sections. The contraction of literacy while the Franks ruled compounds the problem: they produced few written records. In essence however, two dynasties of leaders succeeded each other, first the Merovingians and then the Carolingians. The Merovingian kings claimed descent of their dynasty from the Sicambri, a Scythian or Cimmerian tribe, asserting that this tribe had changed their name to "Franks" in 11 BC, following their defeat and relocation by Drusus, under the leadership of a certain chieftain called Franko. The ethnonym has also been traced to a
- frankon "javelin, lance" (Old English franca, compare the Saxons, named after the seax, and the Lombards, named after the battle-axe; the throwing axe of the Franks is known as the Francisca), but conversely, the weapon may also have been named after the tribe. The meaning of "free" (English frank, frankly) arose because after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks had the status of freemen. Initially two main subdivisions existed within the Franks: the Salian ("salty") and the Ripuarian ("river") Franks. By the 9th century, if not earlier, this division had in practice become virtually non-existent, but continued for some time to have implications for the legal system under which a person could go on trial.

The earliest records of the Franks

9th century, Germany.]] The earliest Frankish history remains relatively unclear. Our main source, the Gallo-Roman chronicler Gregory of Tours, whose Historia Francorum (History of the Franks) covers the period up to 594, quotes from otherwise lost sources like Sulpicius Alexander and Frigeridus and profits from Gregory's personal contact with many Frankish notables. Apart from Gregory's History there exist some earlier Roman sources, such as Ammianus and Sidonius Apollinaris. Gregory states that the Franks originally lived in Pannonia, but later settled on the banks of the Rhine. Additional early sources likewise relate that the Franks migrated in prehistoric times from the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea, to the Rhine, where they adopted their name (circa. 11 BC) in honour of a hereditary chieftain called Franko – replacing the earlier tribal name Sicambri (or Sugambri) – said to be an offshoot of the Cimmerians or Scythians. This legend of a Scythian or Cimmerian background is thus consistent with the origin legends of nearly all other European nations as well. Modern scholars of the period of the migrations have similarly suggested that the Frankish Confederacy emerged from the unification of various earlier, smaller Germanic groups (including the Sugambri, Usipeti, Tencteri, and Bructeri) who inhabited the Rhine valley and lands immediately to the east – a social development perhaps accelerated by increasing upheaval in the area arising from the war between Rome and the Marcomanni beginning in 166, and subsequent conflicts of the late 2nd century and the 3rd century. A region in the north-east of the modern-day Netherlands – north of the erstwhile Roman border – bears the name Salland, and may have received that name from the Salians – likewise, the island of Sjælland in Denmark. Around 250, one group of Franks, taking advantage of a weakened Roman Empire, penetrated as far as Tarragona in present-day Spain, plaguing this region for about a decade before Roman forces subdued them and expelled them from Roman territory. About forty years later, the Franks had the Scheldt region under control and interfered with the waterways to Britain; Roman forces pacified the region, but did not expel the Franks.

Foundation of the Frankish kingdom

In 355–358, the later Emperor Julian once again found the shipping lanes on the Rhine under control of the Franks and again pacified them. Rome granted a considerable part of Gallia Belgica to the Franks. From this time on they became foederati of the Roman Empire. A region roughly corresponding to present-day Flanders and the Netherlands south of the rivers remains a Germanic-speaking region to this day. (The West Germanic language known as Dutch predominates there now.) The Franks thus became the first Germanic people who permanently settled within Roman territory. See this [http://www.roman-emperors.org/nouest4.htm external map]. From their heartland, the Franks gradually conquered most of Roman Gaul north of the Loire valley and east of Visigothic Aquitaine. At first they helped defend the border as allies; for example, when a major invasion of mostly East Germanic tribes crossed the Rhine in 406, the Franks fought against these invaders. The major thrust of the invasion passed south of the Loire river. (In the region of Paris, Roman control persisted until 486, a decade after the fall of the emperors of Ravenna, in part due to alliances with the Franks.)

The Merovingians

:Main article: Merovingian. The reigns of earlier Frankish chieftains – Pharamond (about 419 until about 427) and Clodio (Chlodio) (about 427 until about 447) – seem to owe more to myth than fact, and their relationship to the Merovingian line remains uncertain. Gregory mentions Chlodio as the first king who started the conquest of Gaul by taking Camaracum (Cambrai) and expanding the border of frankish territory south to the Somme. This probably took some time; Sidonius relates that Aëtius surprised the Franks and drove them back (probably around 431). This period marks the beginning of a situation that would endure for many centuries: the Germanic Franks became rulers over an increasing number of Gallo-Roman subjects. In 451, Aëtius called upon his Germanic allies on Roman soil to help fight off an invasion by the Huns. The Salian Franks answered the call, the Ripuarians fought on both sides as some of them lived outside the Empire. Gregory's sources tentatively identify Meroveus (Merovech) as king of the Franks and possibly a son of Chlodio. Meroveus was succeeded by Childeric I, whose grave, rediscovered in 1653, contained a ring that identified him as king of the Franks.

Clovis

:Main article: Clovis I Childeric's son Clovis engaged in a campaign of consolidating the various Frankish kingdoms in Gaul and the Rhineland, which included defeating Syagrius in 486. This victory ended Roman control in the Paris region. In the Battle of Vouillé (507), Clovis, with the help of the Burgundians, defeated the Visigoths, expanding his realm eastwards down to the Pyrenees mountains. The conversion of Clovis to Trinitarian Roman Christianity, after his marriage to the Catholic Burgundian princess Clothilde in 493, may have helped to increase his standing in the eyes of the Pope and the other orthodox Christian rulers. Clovis' conversion signalled the conversion of the rest of the Franks. Because they were able to worship with their Catholic neighbours, the newly-Christianized Franks found much easier acceptance from the local Gallo-Roman population than did the Arian Visigoths, Vandals or Burgundians. The Merovingians thus built what eventually proved the most stable of the successor-kingdoms in the west. :Main article: Merovingian Stability, however, did not feature day-to-day in the Merovingian era. While casual violence existed to a degree in late Roman times, the introduction of the Germanic practice of the blood-feud to obtain personal justice led to a perception of increased lawlessness. Disruptions to trade occurred, and civic life became increasingly difficult, which led to an increasingly localized and fragmented society based on self-sufficient villas. Literacy practically disappeared outside of churches and monasteries. The Merovingian chieftains adhered to the Germanic practice of dividing their lands among their sons, and the frequent division, reunification and redivision of territories often resulted in murder and warfare within the leading families. So though Clovis drove the Visigoths out of Gaul, at his death in 511, his four sons divided his realm between themselves, and over the next two centuries his descendants shared the kingship. The Frankish area expanded further under Clovis' sons, eventually covering most of present-day France, but including areas east of the Rhine river as well, such as Alamannia (today's southwestern Germany) and Thuringia (from 531). Saxony, however, remained outside the Frankish realm until conquered by Charlemagne centuries later. After a temporary reunification of the separate kingdoms under Clotaire I, the Frankish lands split once again in 561 into Neustria, Austrasia, and Burgundy, which had been absorbed into the Frankish realms through a combination of political marriage and force of arms. In each Frankish kingdom the Mayor of the Palace served as the chief officer of state. A series of premature deaths beginning with that of Dagobert I in 639 led to a series of under age kings. By the turn of the 8th century, this had allowed the Austrasian Mayors to consolidate power in their own hereditary regency, laying the foundation for a new dynasty: their descendants the Carolingians.

The Carolingians

:Main articles: Carolingian, Carolingian Empire The Carolingian kingship traditionally begins with the deposition of the last Merovingian king, with papal assent, and the accession in 751 of Pippin the Short, father of Charlemagne. Pippin had succeeded his own father, Charles Martel, as Mayor of the Palace of a reunited and re-erected Frankish kingdom comprised of the formerly independent parts. Pippin reigned as an elected king. Although such elections happened infrequently, a general rule in Germanic law stated that the king relied on the support of his leading men. These men reserved the right to choose a new "kingworthy" leader out of the ruling clan if they felt that the old one could not lead them in profitable battle. While in later France the kingdom became hereditary, the kings of the later Holy Roman Empire proved unable to abolish the elective tradition and continued as elected rulers until the Empire's formal end in 1806. Pippin solidified his position in 754 by entering into an alliance with Pope Stephen III, who presented the king of the Franks a copy of the forged "Donation of Constantine" at Paris and in a magnificent ceremony at Saint-Denis anointed the king and his family and declared him patricius Romanorum ("protector of the Romans"). The following year Pippin fulfilled his promise to the pope and retrieved the Exarchate of Ravenna, recently fallen to the Lombards, and returned it, not to the Byzantine emperor again, but to the Papacy. Pippin donated the re-conquered areas around Rome to the Pope, laying the foundation for the Papal States in the "Donation of Pippin" which he laid on the tomb of St Peter. The papacy had good cause to expect that the remade Frankish monarchy would provide a deferential power base (potestas) in the creation of a new world order, centred on the Pope.

Charlemagne

:Main article Charlemagne Upon Pippin's death in 768, his sons, Charles and Carloman, once again divided the kingdom between themselves. However, Carloman withdrew to a monastery and died shortly thereafter, leaving sole rule to his brother, who would later become known as Charlemagne or Karl der Große (Charles the Great), a powerful, intelligent, and modestly literate figure who became a legend for the later history of both France and Germany. Charlemagne restored an equal balance between emperor and pope. From 772 onwards, Charles conquered and eventually defeated the Saxons to incorporate their realm into the Frankish kingdom. This campaign expanded the practice of non-Roman Christian rulers undertaking the conversion of their neighbours by armed force; Frankish Catholic missionaries, along with others from Ireland and Anglo-Saxon England, had entered Saxon lands since the mid-8th century, resulting in increasing conflict with the Saxons, who resisted the missionary efforts and parallel military incursions. Charles' main Saxon opponent, Widukind, accepted baptism in 785 as part of a peace agreement, but other Saxon leaders continued to fight. Upon his victory in 787 at Verden, Charles ordered the wholesale killing of thousands of pagan Saxon prisoners. After several more uprisings, the Saxons suffered definitive defeat in 804. This expanded the Frankish kingdom eastwards as far as the Elbe river, something the Roman empire had only attempted once, and at which it failed in the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest (9 AD). In order to more effectively Christianize the Saxons, Charles founded several bishoprics, among them Bremen, Münster, Paderborn, and Osnabrück. At the same time (773–774), Charles conquered the Lombards and thus could include northern Italy in his sphere of influence. He renewed the Vatican donation and the promise to the papacy of continued Frankish protection. In 788, Tassilo, dux (duke) of Bavaria rebelled against Charles. Quashing the rebellion incorporated Bavaria into Charles' kingdom. This not only added to the royal fisc, but also drastically reduced the power and influence of the Agilolfings (Tassilo's family), another leading family among the Franks and potential rivals. Until 796, Charles continued to expand the kingdom even farther southeast, into today's Austria and parts of Croatia. Croatia when a treaty split it amongst his grandsons: Central Franks ruled by Lothair I (green), East Franks ruled by Louis the German (yellow), and Charles the Bald led West Franks (purple).]] Charles thus created a realm that reached from the Pyrenees in the southwest (actually, including an area in Northern Spain (Marca Hispanica) after 795) over almost all of today's France (except Brittany, which the Franks never conquered) eastwards to most of today's Germany, including northern Italy and today's Austria. In the hierarchy of the church, bishops and abbots looked to the patronage of the king's palace, where the sources of patronage and security lay. Charles had fully emerged as the leader of Western Christendom, and his patronage of monastic centres of learning gave rise to the "Carolingian Renaissance" of literate culture. On Christmas Day, 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charles as "Emperor of the Romans" in Rome in a ceremony presented as if a surprise (Charlemagne did not wish to be indebted to the bishop of Rome), a further papal move in the series of symbolic gestures that had been defining the mutual roles of papal auctoritas and imperial potestas. Though Charlemagne, in deference to Byzantine outrage, preferred the title "Emperor, king of the Franks and Lombards", the ceremony formally acknowledged the Frankish Empire as the successor of the (Western) Roman one (although only the forged "Donation" gave the pope political authority to do this), thus triggering a series of disputes with the Byzantines around the Roman name. After an initial protest at the usurpation, in 812, the Byzantine Emperor Michael I Rhangabes acknowledged Charlemagne as co-Emperor. The coronation gave permanent legitimacy to Carolingian primacy among the Franks. The Ottonians later resurrected this connection in 962. Upon Charlemagne's death on January 28, 814 in Aachen, he was buried in his own Palace Chapel at Aachen.

Later Carolingians

Charlemagne had several sons, but only one survived him. This son, Louis the Pious, followed his father as the ruler of a united Empire. But sole inheritance remained a matter of chance, rather than intent. When Louis died in 840, the Carolingians adhered to the custom of partible inheritance, and the Treaty of Verdun in 843 divided the Empire in three: # Louis' eldest surviving son Lothair I became Emperor and ruler of the Central Franks. His three sons in turn divided this kingdom between them into Lotharingia, Burgundy and (Northern) Italy. These areas would later vanish as separate kingdoms. # Louis' second son, Louis the German, became King of the East Franks. This area formed the kernel of the later Holy Roman Empire, which eventually evolved into modern Germany. For a list of successors, see the List of German Kings and Emperors. # His third son Charles the Bald became King of the West Franks; this area became the foundation for the later France. For his successors, see the List of French monarchs. Subsequently, at the Treaty of Mersen (870) the partitions were recast, to the detriment of Lotharingia. On December 12, 884, Charles the Fat reunited most of the Carolingian Empire, aside from Burgundy. In late 887, his nephew, Arnulf of Carinthia revolted and assumed the title as King of the East Franks ('Germany'). Charles retired and soon died on January 13, 888. Odo, Count of Paris was chosen to rule in the west ('France'), and was crowned the next month. The Carolingians were 10 years later restored in France, and ruled until 987, when the last Frankish King, Louis V, died

Carolingian legacy

Although an historical accident, the unification of most of what is now western and central Europe under one chief ruler provided a fertile ground for the continuation of what is known as the Carolingian Renaissance. Despite the almost constant internecine warfare that the Carolingian Empire endured, the extension of Frankish rule and Roman Christianity over such a large area ensured a fundamental unity throughout the Empire. Each part of the Carolingian Empire developed differently; Frankish government and culture depended very much upon individual rulers and their aims. Those aims shifted as easily as the changing political alliances within the Frankish leading families. However, those families, the Carolingians included, all shared the same basic beliefs and ideas of government. These ideas and beliefs had their roots in a background that drew from both Roman and Germanic tradition, a tradition that began before the Carolingian ascent and continued to some extent even after the deaths of Louis the Pious and his sons.

Crusaders and other Western Europeans as "Franks"

Because the Frankish kingdom dominated Western Europe for centuries, terms derived from "Frank" were used by many in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond as a synonym for Roman Christians (e.g., al-Faranj in Arabic, Feringhee or Feringhi in Hindustani, Falangji in Chinese, and Frangos in Greek). During the crusades, which were at first led mostly by nobles from northern France who claimed descent from Charlemagne, both Muslims and Christians used these terms as ethnonyms to describe the Crusaders. This usage is often followed by modern historians, who call Western Europeans in the eastern Mediterranean "Franks" regardless of their country of origin. Compare with Rhomaios, Rûmi ("Roman"), used for Orthodox Christians.

1717

Events

- January 4 — The Netherlands, Britain & France sign Triple Alliance
- February 26-March 6 What is now the northeastern United States was paralyzed by a series of blizzards that buried the region.
- March 2 — Dancer John Weaver performs in the first ballet in Britain shown in Drury Lane The Loves of Mars and Venus
- March 31 - Bishop Benjamin Hoadly, acting on the advice of King George begins the Bangorian Controversy by saying that God favors churches with no government.
- June 24 — Anglo branch of Freemasonry ([http://www.grand-lodge.org/ UGLE]) founded in London.
- December 24/25 A disastrous storm flood hits the North Sea coast between the Netherlands and Danmark. Thousands die or lose their houses. (German article on this flood)
- Voltaire is sentenced to Bastille for a year because of his satirical writings
- Spain unites its South American colonies as New Grenada
- Montevideo, Uruguay, founded by Portuguese
- A rift between George I of Great Britain and his son the Prince of Wales leads to the latter being thrown out of the royal household

Ongoing events

- Great Northern War (1700–1721)

Births

- January 5 - William Wildman Shute Barrington, British statesman (d. 1793)
- January 28 - Mustafa III, Ottoman Sultan (d. 1774)
- January 29 - Jeffrey Amherst, British soldier and conqueror of Quebec (d. 1797)
- February 2 - Ernst Gideon Freiherr von Laudon, Austrian field marshal (d. 1790)
- February 19 - David Garrick, English actor (d. 1779)
- May 13 - Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (d. 1780)
- June 8 - John Collins, American politician (d. 1795)
- June 20 - Jacques Saly, French sculptor (d. 1776)
- June 27 - Louis Guillaume Lemonnier, French botanist (d. 1799)
- June 30 - Johann Stamitz, Czech-born composer (d. 1757)
- July 5 - Pedro III of Portugal, consort of Queen Maria I of Portugal (d. 1786)
- August 13 - Louis François I, Prince of Conti, French military leader (d. 1776)
- August 15 - Blind Jack, English roadbuilder (d. 1810)
- September 4 - Job Orton, English dissenting minister (d. 1783)
- September 7 - Martin Dobrizhoffer, Austrian Jesuit missionary (d. 1791)
- September 22 - Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin, Swedish astronomer (d. 1783)
- September 24 - Horace Walpole, British writer (d. 1797)
- October 5 - Marie-Anne de Mailly-Nesle duchess de Châteauroux, French mistress of King Louis XV of France (d. 1744)
- November 9 - Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar and archaeologist (d. 1768)
- November 16 -

March 2

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March 2

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986

Events

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Franks

The earliest records of the Franks

Foundation of the Frankish kingdom

The Merovingians

Clovis

The Carolingians

Charlemagne

Later Carolingians

Carolingian legacy

Crusaders and other Western Europeans as "Franks"

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1717

Events

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