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October 4

October 4

October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in Leap years). There are 88 days remaining.

Events

- 610 - Heraclius arrives by ship from Africa at Constantinople, overthrows Byzantine Emperor Phocas and becomes Emperor.
- 1537 - The first complete English-language Bible (the Matthew Bible) is printed, with translations by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale.
- 1582 - Pope Gregory XIII implements the Gregorian Calendar. In Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain October 4 of this year is followed directly by October 15.
- 1777 - Battle of Germantown: Troops under George Washington are repelled by British troops under Sir William Howe
- 1824 - Mexico adopts a new constitution and becomes a federal republic.
- 1830 - Creation of the state of Belgium after separation from The Netherlands
- 1883 - First run of the Orient Express.
- 1883 - First meeting of the Boys' Brigade in Glasgow, Scotland.
- 1895 - The first U.S. Open Men's Golf Championship run by the United States Golf Association was played on a nine-hole course in Newport, Rhode Island.
- 1931 - Debut appearance of the Dick Tracy comic strip, created by cartoonist Chester Gould.
- 1957 - Launch of Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth.
- 1958 - Fifth Republic of France established.
- 1960 - An Eastern Airlines Lockheed L-188 Electra flying from Boston crashes, killing 62 people after a bird strike.
- 1966 - Basutoland becomes independent from the United Kingdom and is renamed Lesotho.
- 1983 - Hooters restaurant first opened in Clearwater, Florida, United States.
- 1983 - Richard Noble sets a new land speed record of 633.468 mph, driving Thrust 2 at the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, United States.
- 1988 - U.S. televangelist Jim Bakker indicted for fraud.
- 1991 - The Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty was opened for signature.
- 1992 - An El Al Boeing 747-200F crashes into two apartment buildings in Amsterdam, killing 43 including 38 on the ground. See Bijlmerramp
- 1993 - Doom press-release version is made available to journalists for review.
- 1993 - Russian constitutional crisis of 1993: Russian President Boris Yeltsin orders tanks to storm the Russian parliament building.
- 1998 - Leafie Mason of Hughes Springs, Texas, is murdered by Ángel Maturino Reséndiz. She is the serial killer's second victim in his second incident.
- 1999 - The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign goes dark as its new owner doesn't pay the power bill.
- 2001 - A Sibir Airlines Tupolev TU-154 crashes into the Black Sea after being struck by an errant Ukrainian S-200 missile. 78 people are killed.
- 2002 - Opie and Anthony have their show cancelled from WNEW.
- 2003 - Maxim restaurant suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel: 21 Israelis, Jews and Arabs, were killed, and 51 others were wounded.
- 2004 - SpaceShipOne wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.
- 2005 - Americans John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch win the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Births

- 1160 - Alys, Countess of the Vexin, daughter of Louis VII of France
- 1289 - King Louis X of France (d. 1316)
- 1379 - King Henry III of Castile (d. 1406)
- 1515 - Lucas Cranach the Younger, German painter (d. 1586)
- 1542 - Robert Bellarmine, Italian saint (d. 1621)
- 1550 - King Charles IX of Sweden (d. 1611)
- 1562 - Christian Sørensen Longomontanus, Danish astronomer (d. 1647)
- 1570 - Peter Pazmany, Hungarian cardinal and statesman (d. 1637)
- 1625 - Jacqueline Pascal, French child prodigy and sister of Blaise Pascal (d. 1661)
- 1626 - Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland (d. 1712)
- 1720 - Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Italian artist (d. 1778)
- 1723 - Nikolaus Poda von Neuhaus, German entomologist (d. 1798)
- 1814 - Jean-François Millet, French painter (d. 1875)
- 1822 - Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States (d. 1893)
- 1841 - Prudente José de Morais Barros, President of Brazil (d. 1912)
- 1858 - Michael Pupin, Serbian-born telephone pioneer and author (d. 1935)
- 1861 - Frederic Remington, American painter (d. 1909)
- 1862 - Edward Stratemeyer, American author (d. 1930)
- 1877 - Razor Smith, English cricketer (d. 1946)
- 1880 - Damon Runyon, American writer (d. 1946)
- 1881 - Walther von Brauchitsch, German Commander-in-Chief (d. 1948)
- 1886 - Luis Alberni, Spanish character actor (d. 1962)
- 1888 - Oscar Mathisen, Norwegian speed skater (d. 1954)
- 1892 - Engelbert Dollfuss, Austrian politician (d. 1934)
- 1895 - Buster Keaton, American comedian, actor (d. 1966)
- 1903 - John Vincent Atanasoff, American computer pioneer (d. 1995)
- 1903 - Ernst Kaltenbrunner, German military officer (d. 1946)
- 1910 - Frankie Crosetti, American baseball player (d. 2002)
- 1914 - Jim Cairns, Australian politician (d. 2003)
- 1916 - Vitaly Ginzburg, Russian physicist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1918 - Kenichi Fukui, Japanese chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1998)
- 1922 - Malcolm Baldrige, 26th United States Secretary of Commerce (d. 1987)
- 1924 - Charlton Heston, American actor
- 1928 - Alvin Toffler, American author
- 1934 - Sam Huff, American football player
- 1937 - Jackie Collins, British author
- 1938 - Kurt Wüthrich, Swiss chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1940 - Silvio Marzolini, Argentine footballer
- 1941 - Anne Rice, American writer
- 1942 - Karl W. Richter, American aviator
- 1943 - H. Rap Brown, American civil rights activist
- 1944 - Tony La Russa, American baseball manager
- 1945 - Clifton Davis, American actor
- 1946 - Susan Sarandon, American actress
- 1947 - Ann Widdecombe, British politician
- 1949 - Armand Assante, American actor
- 1953 - Tchéky Karyo, Turkish-born actor
- 1959 - Chris Lowe, British singer (Pet Shop Boys)
- 1959 - Tony Meo, English snooker player
- 1960 - Afrika Bambaataa, American musician
- 1961 - Jon Secada, Cuban-born singer
- 1961 - Kazuki Takahashi, Japanese author and artist
- 1963 - A.C. Green, American basketball player
- 1967 - Marcus Bentley, British voice actor
- 1967 - Liev Schreiber, American actor
- 1976 - Alicia Silverstone, American actress
- 1976 - Mauro Camoranesi, Argentine-Italian footballer
- 1979 - Rachael Leigh Cook, American actress
- 1980 - Me'Lisa Barber, American athlete
- 1980 - Sarah Fisher, American race car driver
- 1984 - Elena Katina, Russian musician (t.A.T.u.)

Deaths

- 1052 - Prince Vladimir of Novgorod (b. 1020)
- 1221 - William III Talvas, Count of Ponthieu (b. 1179)
- 1226 - Saint Francis of Assisi (b. 1181)
- 1250 - Herman VI, Margrave of Baden
- 1305 - Emperor Kameyama of Japan (b. 1249)
- 1582 - Teresa of Avila, Spanish saint and poet (b. 1515)
- 1597 - Sarsa Dengel, Emperor of Ethiopia (b. 1550)
- 1646 - Thomas Howard, 21st Earl of Arundel, English statesman (b. 1586)
- 1660 - Francesco Albani, Italian painter (b. 1578)
- 1669 - Rembrandt, Dutch painter (b. 1606)
- 1680 - Pierre-Paul Riquet, French engineer and canal builder
- 1743 - John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, Scottish soldier (b. 1678)
- 1749 - Franz Freiherr von der Trenck, Austrian soldier (b. 1711)
- 1754 - Tanacharison, Catawba Indian chief
- 1785 - David Brearly, delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention (b. 1703)
- 1821 - John Rennie, Scottish engineer (b. 1761)
- 1851 - Manuel de Godoy, Spanish statesman (b. 1767)
- 1859 - Karl Baedeker, German author and publisher (b. 1801)
- 1880 - Jacques Offenbach, German-born composer (b. 1819)
- 1903 - Otto Weininger, Austrian philosopher (b. 1880)
- 1904 - Frédéric Bartholdi, French sculptor (b. 1834)
- 1935 - Jean Béraud, French painter (b. 1849)
- 1944 - Al Smith, Presidential candidate and Governor of New York (b. 1873)
- 1946 - Barney Oldfield, American automobile pioneer (b. 1878)
- 1947 - Max Planck, German physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1858)
- 1951 - Willie Moretti, American gangster (b. 1894)
- 1969 - Natalino Otto, Italian singer (b. 1912)
- 1970 - Janis Joplin, American singer (b. 1943)
- 1982 - Glenn Gould, Canadian pianist (b. 1932)
- 1989 - Graham Chapman, British comedian (b. 1941)
- 1989 - Secretariat, American race horse (b. 1970)
- 1997 - Gunpei Yokoi, Japanese game developer (b. 1941)
- 2000 - Michael Smith, English-born chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1932)
- 2002 - Alphonse Chapanis, founder of ergonomics
- 2003 - Sid McMath, Governor of Arkansas (b. 1912)
- 2004 - Gordon Cooper, astronaut (b. 1927)
- 2005 - Stanley K. Hathaway, U.S. politician (b. 1924)

Holidays

- Roman festivals - Ieiunium Cereris (Fast of Ceres) (since 191 BC; that calendar date fell in late spring at that time).
- RC Saints - Feast day of Saint Francis of Assisi; also of Saint Amun, Saint Petronius of Bologna.
- Also see October 4 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Islam - tonight in 2005 Ramadan begins in some parts of the world.
- Australia - Labour Day of 2005 (ACT, NSW, & SA, 2004: first Monday of October).
- Lesotho - Independence Day (from Britain, 1966).
- World Animal Day

External links

- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/4 BBC: On This Day] ---- October 3 - October 5 - September 4 - November 4 – more historical anniversaries ko:10월 4일 ms:4 Oktober ja:10月4日 simple:October 4 th:4 ตุลาคม

October 4

October 4 is the 277th day of the year (278th in Leap years). There are 88 days remaining.

Events

Births

Deaths

Holidays

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

Heraclius

.]] Flavius Heraclius Augustus (c. 575 - February 11, 641) was Byzantine Emperor from October 5, 610 to February 11, 641. He was the son and namesake of the powerful Armenian Exarch of Africa, who had been one of East Roman Emperor Maurice's key generals in the 590 war with Persia. Though the younger Heraclius' birthplace is unknown, he grew up in Roman Africa; according to one tradition, he engaged in gladiatorial combat with lions as a youth. In 608, the Heraclius the Elder renounced his loyalty to the Emperor Phocas, who had overthrown Maurice six years earlier. The rebels issued coins showing both Heraclii dressed as consuls, though neither of them explicitly claimed the imperial title at this time. The younger Heraclius' cousin Nicetas launched an overland invasion of Egypt; by 609, he had defeated Phocas's general Bonosus and secured the province. Meanwhile, the younger Heraclius sailed eastward with another force via Sicily and Cyprus. As he approached Constantinople, he made contact with leading aristocrats in the city, and soon arranged a ceremony where he was crowned and acclaimed as emperor. When he reached the capital, the Excubitors, an elite imperial guard unit led by Phocas's own son-in-law Priscus, deserted to Heraclius, and he entered the city without serious resistance. Heraclius personally executed Phocas. On October 5, 610, Heraclius was crowned for a second time, this time in the Chapel of St. Stephen within the Great Palace, and at the same time wed his betrothed, Fabia, who took the name Eudocia. She was beloved in Constantinople, and when she died in 612 and he married his niece Martina, the second marriage was never approved of. In the reign of Heraclius' two sons, the divisive Martina was to become the center of power and political intrigue. When Heraclius took power, the Empire was in a desperate situation. Phocas's initial revolt had stripped the Danube frontier of troops, leaving the most of the Balkans at the mercy of the Avars. The Persian King Khosrau II, who had been an ally of Maurice, used his death as an excuse to launch a war against the Byzantines. Khosrau had at his court a man who claimed to be Maurice's son Theodosius, and Khosrau demanded that the Byzantines accept him as Emperor. The Persians had slowly gained the upper hand in Mesopotamia over the course of Phocas's reign; when Heraclius' revolt resulted in civil war, the Persians took advantage of the internal conflict to advance deep into Syria. Heraclius offered peace terms to the Persians upon his accession, but Khosrau refused to treat with him, viewing him as just another usurper of Theodosius' throne. Heraclius' initial military moves against the Persians ended disastrously, and the Persians rapidly advanced westward. They took Damascus in 613, Jerusalem in 614 (damaging the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and capturing the Holy Cross in the process), and Egypt in 616. They made raids deep into Anatolia as far as Chalcedon, a town lying almost opposite of Constantinople across the Bosporous. At night, it was said, the people of Constantinople would see Persian watch-fires and their reflection on the water. The Persians were also in communication with the Avars. The situation was so grave that Heraclius reportedly considered moving the capital from Constantinople to Carthage. But he remained in the East and worked on reorganizing the Byzantine military. He developed the idea of granting land to individuals in return for hereditary military service. The land so granted was organised into thema, a Greek word to describe a division of troops, and each theme was placed under the command of a strategos or military governor. This arrangement ensured the continuance of the Empire for hundreds of years and enabled Heraclius to reconquer lands taken by the Persians, ravaging Persia along the way. Once he had rebuilt the army, Heraclius took the field himself in 621, the first emperor to campaign against a foreign enemy in person since Theodosius I. Confident that Constantinople was well defended, and unwilling to engage in a war of attrition over the lost eastern provinces, he marched across Asia Minor and invaded Persia itself. He would stay on campaign for several years. In 626, Constantinople itself was besieged by the Avars; but Persian attempts to cross the Bosporous and aid the Avars were repulsed by the Byzantine navy, and the Avars withdrew. Meanwhile, Heraclius acquired the assistance of the Khazars and other Turkic troops. Heraclius also exploited divisions within the Persian Empire, keeping the great Persian general Shahrbaraz neutral by convincing him that Khusrau had grown jealous of him and ordered his execution. At the Battle of Nineveh in 627, the Roman forces (without the Khazars who left Heraclius) defeated the Persians under Rhazates. In 629 he allied with the Ethiopians and began to win proinces he lost to Persia. The Ethiopians put tremendous military pressure on the Persians whos armies were no match for the fast moving Ethiopians, who were more than happy to crush Persia for an earlier invasion of the arabian pennisual that was Ethiopian controlled. When Khosrau still refused to make peace, Heraclius continued his campaign; as he approached the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, the Persian aristocracy deposed Khosrau. His successor made peace with Heraclius by restoring all the empire's former territories. The Persian Sassanid dynasty never recovered from this war; it took years for a strong king to emerge from a series of coups, and soon the Arabs overwhelmed the sinking state. Heraclius took for himself the ancient Persian title of "King of Kings", dropping the traditional Roman imperial title of "Augustus". Later on, he styled himself as Basileus, the Greek word for "Emperor", and that title was used by the eastern Roman emperors for the next 800 years. Heraclius also discontinued the use of Latin as the empire's official language, replacing it with Greek. Although the empire called itself Roman throughout the rest of its history, it was in reality a Hellenic empire from Heraclius onward. In 630, he reached the height of his power when he marched triumphantly into Jerusalem and restored the True Cross to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But unfortunately for his war-weary empire, and unknown to him at the time, Muhammad had only recently succeeded in unifying all the nomadic tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arabs, who had been too divided in the past to pose a military threat, now comprised one of the most powerful states in the region, and were animated by their new conversion to Muhammad's religion of Islam. Heraclius fell ill soon after his triumph and never took the field again. When the Arab Muslims invaded Syria and Palestine in 634, he was unable to oppose them personally, and his generals failed him. The Battle of Yarmuk in 636 resulted in a crushing defeat for the larger Roman army and within three years, Syria and Palestine were lost again. By the time of Heraclius' death, most of Egypt had fallen as well. Although his defeat of the Persians produced no lasting benefit to the empire, Heraclius still ranks among the greatest of the Byzantine emperors. His reforms of the government reduced the corruption which had taken hold in the disastrous reign of Phocas, and he reorganized the military with great success. Ultimately, the reformed imperial army halted the Muslims in Asia Minor and held on to Carthage for another 60 years, saving a core from which the empire's strength could be rebuilt. The recovery of the eastern areas of the Byzantine Empire from the Persians once again raised the problem of religious unity centering around the understanding of the true nature of Christ. Most of the inhabitants of these provinces were Monophysites who rejected the Council of Chalcedon. Heraclius tried to promote a compromise doctrine called Monothelitism; however, this philosophy was rejected as heretical by both sides of the dispute. For this reason, Heraclius was viewed as a heretic and bad ruler by some later religious writers. After the Monophysite provinces were finally lost to the Muslims, Monotheletism rather lost its raison d'etre and was eventually abandoned.

External link

- [http://www.roman-emperors.org/heraclis.htm De Imperatoribus Romanis: an online encyclopedia of Roman Emperors] Category:575 births Category:641 deaths Category:Byzantine emperors Category:Heraclian Dynasty ja:ヘラクレイオス

Constantinople

:This article details the history of Constantinople before the Turkish Conquest of 1453. For details on the city since 1453, see İstanbul. İstanbul Constantinople (Greek: Κωνσταντινούπολις) was the original and best known name of the modern city of İstanbul in Turkey in its role over more than a millennium as capital, first of the Eastern Roman Empire, subsequently of the Byzantine Empire. The last imperial designation reveals the city's even more ancient Greek name: Byzantium. Constantinople was located strategically between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara at the point where Europe met Asia, and was highly significant as the successor to ancient Rome and the largest and wealthiest city in Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

Names

The name of Constantinople is an honorific eponym referencing its founder, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great. Constantine established the Greek city of Byzantium as the second capital of the Roman Empire on May 11, AD 330, naming the city Nova Roma (New Rome). That particular name, however, enjoyed little common use, and it was as the 'City of Constantine' (Constantinopolis) that it lived through the subsequent centuries. A historical Slavic name for the city was Tsargrad. The word is an Old Church Slavonic translation of the Greek, presumably of Βασιλεως Πόλις, "the city of the emperor [king]": combining the Slavonic words tsar for "Caesar" and grad for "city", it stood for "the City of the Emperor [Caesar]". As fashions have changed the term has faded, and the word Tsargrad is now an archaic term in Russian, but is still used occasionally in Bulgarian. The Ottoman Turks called the city Stamboul or İstanbul, adopting a usage in Greek "eis tin Poli" (to or at the City). But they still used "Konstantiniyye" ("Constantine's City", or Constantinople) as the official name. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923, the capital was moved to Ankara. Constantinople was officially renamed İstanbul by the Republic of Turkey in 1930.

Byzantium

Constantine's foundation of New Rome on this site reflected its strategic and commercial importance from the earliest times, lying as it does astride both the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black or Euxine Sea to the Mediterranean, whilst also being possessed of an excellent and spacious harbour in the Golden Horn. No doubt for these reasons, a city was first founded on the site in the early days of Greek colonial expansion, when in 667 BC the legendary Byzas established it with a group of citizens from the town of Megara. This city was named Byzantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον), after its founder.

Constantine's Foundation

Byzantium, ca. 1000)]] Constantine had altogether more ambitious plans. Having restored the unity of the empire, now overseeing the progress of major governmental reforms and sponsoring the consolidation of the Christian church, Constantine was well aware that Rome had become an unsatisfactory capital for several reasons. Located in central Italy, Rome lay too far from the eastern imperial frontiers, and hence also from the legions and the Imperial courts.Moreover, Rome offered an undesirable playground for disaffected politicians; it also suffered regularly from flooding and from malaria. It seemed impossible to many that the capital could be moved. Nevertheless, Constantine identified the site of Byzantium as the correct place: a city where an emperor could sit, readily defended, with easy access to the Danube or the Euphrates frontiers, his court supplied from the rich gardens and sophisticated workshops of Roman Asia, his treasuries filled by the wealthiest provinces of the empire. Constantine laid out the expanded city, dividing it into 14 regions, and ornamenting it with great public works worthy of a great imperial city. Yet initially Constantinople did not have all the dignities of Rome, possessing a proconsul, rather than a prefect of the city. Furthermore, it had no praetors, tribunes or quaestors. Although Constantinople did have senators, they held the title clarus, not clarissimus, like those of Rome. Nor did it have the panoply of other administrative offices regulating the food-supply, the police, the statues, the temples, the sewers, the aqueducts and other public works. The new program of building was carried out in great haste: columns, marbles, doors and tiles were taken wholesale from the temples of the empire and removed to the new city. By the same token, however, many of the greatest works of Greek and Roman art were soon to be seen in its squares and streets. The emperor stimulated private building by promising householders gifts of land from the imperial estates in Asiana and Pontica, and on 18 May 332 he announced that, as in Rome, free distributions of food would be made to citizens. At the time the amount is said to have been 80,000 rations a day, doled out from 117 distribution points around the city.

Public buildings

332 Constantinople was a Christian city, lying in the most Christianised part of the Empire. Justinian made the temples of Byzantium into ruins, and erected the splendid Church of the Holy Wisdom, Sancta Sophia (also known as Hagia Sophia in Greek), as the centrepiece of his Christian capital. He oversaw also the building of the Church of the Holy Apostles, and that of St Irene. Constantine laid out anew the square at the centre of old Byzantium, naming it the Augusteum in honour of his mother, Helena. Sancta Sophia lay on the north side of the Augusteum. The new senate-house (or Curia) was housed in a basilica on the east side. On the south side of the great square was erected the Great Palace of the emperor with its imposing entrance, the Chalke, and its ceremonial suite known as the Palace of Daphne. Located immediately nearby was the vast Hippodrome for chariot-races, seating over 80,000 spectators, and the Baths of Zeuxippus (both originally built in the time of Severus). At the entrance at the western end of the Augusteum was the Milestone, a vaulted monument from which distances were measured across the Eastern Empire. From the Augusteum a great street, the Mese, led, lined with colonnades. As it descended the First Hill of the city and climbed the Second Hill, it passed on the left the Praetorium or law-court. Then it passed through the oval Forum of Constantine where there was a second senate-house, then on and through the Forum of Taurus and then the Forum of Bous, and finally up the Sixth Hill and through to the Golden Gate on the Propontis. The Mese would be seven Roman miles long to the Golden Gate of the Walls of Theodosius. Constantine erected a high column in the centre of the Forum, on the Second Hill, with a statue of himself at the top, crowned with a halo of seven rays and looking towards the rising sun.

Constantinople in the Divided Empire

Walls of Theodosius, on a contemporary silver plate (Royal Academy of History, Madrid)]] The first known Prefect of the City of Constantinople was Honoratus, who took office on 11 December 359 and held it until 361. The emperor Valens built the Palace of Hebdomon on the shore of the Propontis near the Golden Gate, probably for use when reviewing troops. All the emperors, up to Zeno and Basiliscus, who were elevated at Constantinople, were crowned and acclaimed at the Hebdomon. Theodosius I founded the church of John the Baptist to house a relic of the saint, put up a memorial pillar to himself in the Forum of Taurus, and turned the ruined temple of Aphrodite into a coachhouse for the Praetorian Prefect; Arcadius built a new forum named after himself on the Mese, near the walls of Constantine. Gradually the importance of the city increased. Following the shock of the Battle of Adrianople in 376, when the emperor Valens with the flower of the Roman armies was destroyed by the Goths within a few days' march of the city, Constantinople looked to its defences, and Theodosius II built in 413-414 the 60-foot tall walls which were never to be breached until the coming of gunpowder. Theodosius also founded a University at the Capitolium near the Forum of Taurus, on 27 February 425. In the 5th century, when the barbarians overran the Western Empire, its emperors retreated to Ravenna before it collapsed altogether. Thereafter, Constantinople became in truth the greatest city of the Empire, and the greatest in the world. Emperors were no longer peripatetic between various court capitals and palaces. They remained in their palace in the Great City, and sent generals to command their armies. The wealth of the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia flowed into Constantinople.

The City under Justinian

The emperor Justinian (527-565) was known for his successes in war, for his legal reforms and for his public works. It was from Constantinople that his expedition for the reconquest of Africa set sail on or about 21 June 533. Before their departure the ship of the commander, Belisarius, anchored in front of the Imperial palace, and the Patriarch offered prayers for the success of the enterprise. Chariot-racing had been important in Rome for centuries. In Constantinople, the hippodrome became over time increasingly a place of political significance. It was where (as a shadow of the popular elections of old Rome) the people by acclamation showed their approval of a new emperor; and also where they openly criticised the government, or clamoured for the removal of unpopular ministers. In the time of Justinian, public order in Constantinople became a critical political issue. The entire late Roman and early Byzantine period was one where Christianity was resolving fundamental questions of identity, and the dispute between the orthodox and the monophysites became the cause of serious disorder, expressed through allegiance to the horse-racing parties of the Blues and the Greens, and in the form of a major rebellion in the capital of 532 AD, known as the "Nika" riots (from the battle-cry of "Victory!" of those involved). "Nika" riots Fires started by the Nika rioters consumed the basilica of St Sophia, the city's principal church. Justinian commissioned Anthemius of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus to replace it with the incomparable St Sophia, the great cathedral of the Orthodox Church, whose dome was said to be held aloft by God alone, and which was directly connected to the palace so that the imperial family could attend services without passing through the streets (St Sophia was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of the city, and is now a museum). The dedication took place on Christmas Day of 537 AD in the presence of the Emperor, who exclaimed, "O Solomon, I have outdone thee!" Justinian also had Anthemius and Isidore demolish and replace the original Church of the Holy Apostles, built by Constantine, with a new church under the same dedication. This was designed in the form of an equally-armed cross with five domes, and ornamented with beautiful mosaics. This church was to remain the burial place of the emperors from Constantine himself until the eleventh century. When the city fell to the Turks in 1453, the church was demolished to make room for the tomb of Mehmet II the Conqueror.

The City after Justinian

Justinian was succeeded in turn by Justin II, Tiberius II and Maurice, able emperors who had to deal with a deteriorating military situation, especially on the eastern frontier. Subsequently there was a period of near-anarchy, which was exploited by the enemies of the Empire. After the Avars came to threaten Constantinople from the west and simultaneously the Persians from the East, Heraclius, the exarch of Africa, set sail for the city and assumed the purple. He found the situation so dire that at first he contemplated moving the imperial capital to Carthage, but with military genius he succeeded in expelling the invaders. No sooner had he carried war into their own territories, however, and achieved an advantageous peace with Persia, than he was faced with the Arab expansion. Constantinople was besieged twice by the Arabs, once in a long blockade between 674 and 678, and once again in 717.

Importance of the City in its prime

Constantinople was historically important for a number of reasons. 717 Byzantium, later Constantinople, was one of the larger and richer urban centers in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Hellenic period and later during the Roman Empire, mostly due to its strategic position commanding the trade routes between the Aegean and the Black Sea. During the Fourth Century AD the Emperor Constantine relocated his eastern capital to Byzantium, hence the name Constantinople (Constantine's City), in an attempt to reinvigorate the Empire. It would remain the capital of the eastern, Greek speaking empire, short several interregnums, for over a thousand years. As the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire (now commonly known as the Byzantine Empire), the Greeks called Constantinople simply "the City", while throughout Europe it was known as the "Queen of Cities." In its heyday, roughly corresponding to what is now known as the Middle Ages, it was the richest and largest European city, exerting a powerful cultural pull and dominating economic life in the Mediterranean. Visitors and merchants were especially struck by the beautiful monasteries and churches of the city, particularly the Hagia Sophia, or the Church of Holy Wisdom. A Russian 14th-century traveller, Stephen of Novgorod, wrote, "As for St Sofia, the human mind can neither tell it nor make description of it". The influence of Byzantine architecture and art can be seen in its extensive copying throughout Europe, particular examples include St. Mark's in Venice, the basilica of Ravenna and many churches throughout the Slavic East. Also, alone in Europe until the 13th century Italian florin, the Empire continued to produce sound gold coinage, the solidus of Diocletian becoming the bezant prized throughout the Middle Ages. Its city walls (the Theodosian Walls) and urban infrastructure was moreover a marvel throughout the Middle Ages, keeping a memory alive of the skill and technical expertise of the Roman Empire. The city, also provided a defence for the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire against the invasions of the 5th century, for Europe against the Arabs, and for European Christendom against Islam. Constantine assured the position of the Bishop or Patriarch of Constantinople as pre-eminent in the Eastern Empire. This action placed Constantinople at the religious heart of Orthodoxy. The Patriarch of Constantinople is still considered first among equals in the Orthodox Church along with the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, and the later Slavic Patriarchs. This position is largely ceremonial but still carries emotional weight.

The Isaurians

In the eighth and ninth centuries the iconoclast movement caused serious political unrest throughout the Empire. The emperor Leo III issued a decree in 726 against images, and ordered the destruction of a statue of Christ over one of the doors of the Chalke, an act which was fiercely resisted by the citizens. Constantine V convoked a church council in 754 which condemned the worship of images, after which many treasures were broken, burned, or painted over. Following the death of his son Leo IV in 780, the empress Irene restored the veneration of images through the agency of the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.

The Comneni and Palaeologi

787, 1840]] Following the catastrophic defeat in 1071 of the emperor Romanus IV Diogenes by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert in Armenia, his successor Michael VII pleaded for assistance from the West. In due course this was to lead to the First Crusade, which assembled at Constantinople in 1096 in the reign of Alexius I Comnenus, and moved on towards Jerusalem. Much of this is documented by the writer and historian Anna Comnena in her work The Alexiad. The Crusades were, however, to lead in time to the disastrous capture and sack of Constantinople by soldiers of the Fourth Crusade on April 12 1204. For the subsequent half-century or more, Constantinople remained the centre of the Roman Catholic crusader state, set up after the city's capture under Baldwin IX, and which became known as the Latin Kingdom. During this time, the Byzantine emperors made their capital at nearby Nicaea, which acted as the capital of the temporary, short-lived Empire of Nicaea and a refuge for refugees from the sacked city of Constantinople. From this base, Constantinople was eventually recaptured from its last Latin ruler, Baldwin II, by Byzantine forces under Michael VIII Palaeologus in 1261. The Palaeologi founded a beautiful new imperial palace at Blachernae in the north-west of the city, the Great Palace subsequently falling into disuse.

The Ottomans

Blachernae (painted 1499)]] Constantinople and the Empire finally fell to the Ottoman Empire on Tuesday May 29, 1453, during the reign of Constantine XI Paleologus (see Fall of Constantinople). Although the Turks overthrew the Byzantines, Fatih Sultan Mehmed the Second (the Ottaman Sultan at the time) let Orthodox Patriarchy to continue its affairs, having stated that they did not want to join the Vatican.

Constantinople in popular culture

- Constantinople appears as a dusty faded capital, shorn of its glories, in William Butler Yeats' 1926 poem Sailing to Byzantium.
- Constantinople's change of name was the theme for a song by The Four Lads later covered by They Might Be Giants entitled Istanbul (Not Constantinople) [http://www.lyricsdepot.com/they-might-be-giants/istanbul-not-constantinople.html]. "Constantinople" was also the title of the opening track of The Residents' EP Duck Stab!, released in 1978.
- Constantinople under Justinian is the scene of "A Flame in Byzantium" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro released in 1987.

Notes

- Constantinople is derived from the Greek Κωνσταντινούπολη. Other names for the city:
- Turkish name: İstanbul.
- Modern Greek name: Κωνσταντινούπολη, older name: Κωνσταντινούπολις (Konstantinoupolis; see also List of traditional Greek place names)
- Roman name: Constantinopolis;
- Latin name: Constantinopolis, Nova Roma
- Arabic name: قسطنطينية (Kostantiniyya)
- Armenian name: Konstaninopolis / Gonstantinobolis
- Swedish viking name: Miklagård
- Ottoman Turkish name: Konstantiniyye.
- Slavonic name: Tsargrad (Царьград).
- Stamboul (used by British and other diplomatic corps in "The City")
- The Sublime Porte - the Ottoman Foreign Ministry, so-called for its gate-location within the Topkapi and often used as a synonym for "Constantinople" in diplomatic notes (the same way "Whitehall" would be used in the case of the British Foreign Office, or "No. 10 Downing" to refer to the PMO)
- Source for quote: Scriptores originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed T Preger I 105 (see A A Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire, 1952, vol I p 188).

External links

- [http://www.sephardicstudies.org/istanbul.html Info on the name change] from the Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture
- [http://www2.arch.uiuc.edu/research/rgouster Welcome to Constantinople], documenting the monuments of Byzantine Constantinople, compiled by Robert Ousterhout, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
- [http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/BURLAT/3
- .html#1 Constantinople], from History of the Later Roman Empire, by J.B. Bury
- [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04301a.htm History of Constantinople] from the "New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia."
- [http://www.byzantium1200.com/ Byzantium 1200], A project aimed at creating computer reconstructions of the Byzantine Monuments located in Istanbul, Turkey as of year 1200 AD. Category:Byzantine Empire Category:Cities along the Silk Road Category:Holy cities Category:Ottoman Empire Category:Roman sites in Turkey Category:Roman colonies ko:콘스탄티노폴리스 ja:コンスタンティノポリス

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. In certain specific contexts, usually referring to the time before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it is also often referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire. There is no consensus on the starting date of the Byzantine period. Some place it during the reign of Diocletian (284-305) due to the administrative reforms he introduced, dividing the empire into a pars Orientis and a pars Occidentis. Others place it during the reign of Theodosius I (379-395) and Christendom's victory over paganism, or, following his death in 395, with the division of the empire into western and eastern halves. Others place it yet further in 476, when the last western emperor, Romulus Augustus, was forced to abdicate, thus leaving to the emperor in the Greek East sole imperial authority. In any case, the changeover was gradual and by 330, when Constantine I inaugurated his new capital, the process of Hellenization and Christianization was well underway.

The term "Byzantine Empire"

Main article: Names of the Greeks The name Byzantine Empire is derived from the original Greek name for Constantinople; Byzantium. The name is a modern term and would have been alien to its contemporaries. The Empire's native Greek name was Romanía or Basileía Romaíon, a direct translation of the Latin name of the Roman Empire, Imperium Romanorum. The term Byzantine Empire was invented in 1557, about a century after the fall of Constantinople by German historian Hieronymus Wolf, who introduced a system of Byzantine historiography in his work Corpus Historiae Byzantinae in order to distinguish ancient Roman from medieval Greek history without drawing attention to their ancient predecessors. Standardization of the term did not occur until the 18th century, when French authors such as Montesquieu began to popularize it. Hieronymus himself was influenced by the rift caused by the 9th century dispute between Romans (Byzantines as we render them today) and Franks, who, under Charlemagne's newly formed empire, and in concert with the Pope, attempted to legitimize their conquests by claiming inheritance of Roman rights in Italy thereby renouncing their eastern neighbours as true Romans. The Donation of Constantine, one of the most famous forged documents in history, played a crucial role in this. Henceforth, it was fixed policy in the West to refer to the emperor in Constantinople not by the usual "Imperator Romanorum" (Emperor of the Romans) which was now reserved for the Frankish monarch, but as "Imperator Graecorum" (Emperor of the Greeks) and the land as "Imperium Graecorum", "Graecia", "Terra Graecorum" or even "Imperium Constantinopolitanus". This served as a precedent for Wolf who was motivated, at least partly, to re-interpret Roman history in different terms. Nevertheless, this was not intended in a demeaning manner since he ascribed his changes to historiography and not history itself. Later, a derogatory use of 'Byzantine' was developed.

Identity

"Byzantium may be defined as a multi-ethnic empire that emerged as a Christian empire, soon comprised the Hellenized empire of the East and ended its thousand year history, in 1453, as a Greek Orthodox state: An empire that became a nation, almost by the modern meaning of the word".¹ In the centuries following the Arab and Lombard conquests in the 7th century, its multi-ethnic (albeit not multi-national) nature remained even though its constituent parts in the Balkans and Asia Minor contained an overwhelmingly large Greek population. Ethnic minorities and sizeable communities of religious heretics often lived on or near the borderlands, the Armenians being the only sizeable one. Byzantines identified themselves as Romans (Ρωμαιοί - Romans) which had already become a synonym for a Hellene (Έλλην - Greek). Also, the Byzantines were developing a national consciousness as residents of Ρωμανία (Romania, as the Byzantine state and its world were called). This nationalist awareness is reflected in literature, particularly in the acritic songs, where frontiersmen (ακρίτες) are praised for defending their country against invaders, of which most famous is the heroic or epic poem Digenis Acritas. The official dissolution of the Byzantine state in the 15th century did not immediately undo Byzantine society. During the Ottoman occupation Greeks continued to ident

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