History Fiend

Illustration by R. Fresson. The Parthenon is Blown Up The Athenian temple was partly destroyed on 26 September 1687. Justin & Stephanie Pollard  | Published in  History Today   Volume 68 Issue 9 September 2018 The 15-year ‘Great Turkish War’, an effort to oppose the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe, was made up of many smaller conflicts, including the Morean War between Venice and the Ottomans, in which the future Venetian doge and fêted Captain-General Francesco Morosini was given orders to seize Athens and its environs from the Turks. The Acropolis, however, proved a troublesome target. The Turks were dug in on the summit, having heavily fortified the precipitous site, and much of the Turkish population now lived on and around the monuments and in various ancient buildings. Pericles’ Propylaea was still in ruins following the explosion of a powder magazine kept there in 1656, while the...

How one of the greatest advances in human culture also helped divide Christendom.   Bronze relief panel from the Gutenberg Monument in Mainz, by David d’Angers, 1840. In 1454, in the Rhineland town of Mainz, three friends formed a legal arrangement to produce an epochal object. An inventor, Johannes Gutenberg, a printer, Peter Schöffer, and a financier, Johann Fūrst, collaborated to publish a Bible – the Gutenberg, as it is now known – widely regarded as a transformative moment in the history of European culture. Before that, although there had been innovations in the production of handwritten (scribal) editions of scripture – including what were regarded by many as heretical attempts by the proto-Protestant Wycliffe to produce vernacular editions of the Bible – these only had limited audiences. Manuscript copies were expensive and limited to elite, bespoke consumption, usually for monastic and scholarly usage.  The first printed Old and ...

From haunted castles to cursed, crumbling manor houses, Britain is home to hundreds of ruins steeped in spooky and supernatural history. Here, David Hamilton, author of   Wild Ruins , explores eight of the most intriguing… 1 Ruthven Barracks (Badenoch, Scotland) With the distant backdrop of the Cairngorms and amid spectacular scenery, Ruthven is a must-see for anyone travelling through Scotland. During the early 18th century the British government was a nervous one. It had just quelled (in 1715) the first of what would be two Jacobite uprisings, and it sought to subdue the unruly clans of the Highlands. Situated on the main Perth to Inverness road, with a crossing of the river Spey, Ruthven was strategically placed for the building of an army outpost and in 1719 Ruthven Barracks was built on the site of a 13th-century castle. Read more: 10 facts about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites Scottish history: 9 steps from Union to Referendum 10 thin...