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Turkey/France: 'Bashi-Bazouk'. Oil on canvas painting by Jean-Leon Gerome (1825-1904), c. 1868-1869.<br/><br/> A bashi-bazouk or bashibazouk was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army. They were noted for their lack of discipline.<br/><br/> Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.
León is a province of northwestern Spain, in the northwestern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León.<br/><br/> The Plaza de España is a plaza in the Parque de María Luisa (Maria Luisa Park), in Seville, Spain, built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It is a landmark example of the Regionalism Architecture, mixing elements of the Renaissance Revival and Moorish Revival (Neo-Mudéjar) styles of Spanish architecture.
Alfonso I of Asturias (c. 693 – 757) , called the Catholic, was the third King of Asturias, reigning from 739 to his death in 757. His reign saw an extension of the Christian domain of Asturias, reconquering Galicia and León.<br/><br/> He succeeded his brother-in-law Favila, and was succeeded by his son, Fruela I. Alfonso's youngest son, Mauregatus, also became king, and his daughter Adosinda was consort to King Silo of Asturias. The dynasty started by Alfonso was known in contemporary Al-Andalus as the Astur-Leonese dynasty.
Sancha was a daughter of Alfonso V of León by his first wife, Elvira Menéndez. In 1032, Sancha was married to Ferdinand I of León and Castile.<br/><br/> At the Battle of Tamarón in 1037 Ferdinand killed Sancha’s brother Bermudo III of León, making Sancha the heir and allowing Ferdinand to have himself crowned King of León, Sancha thereby became Queen.
Ferdinand I (c. 1015 – 24 December 1065), called the Great (<i>el Magno</i>), was the Count of Castile from his uncle's death in 1029 and the King of León after defeating his brother-in-law in 1037.<br/><br/> According to tradition, he was the first to have himself crowned Emperor of Spain (1056), and his heirs carried on the tradition. While Ferdinand inaugurated the rule of the Navarrese Jiménez dynasty over western Spain, his rise to preeminence among the Christian rulers of the peninsula shifted the locus of power and culture westward after more than a century of Leonese decline.
Alfonso V (994 – 7 August 1028), called the Noble, was King of León from 999 to 1028. Enough is known of him to justify the belief that he had some of the qualities of a soldier and a statesman.<br/><br/> Like other kings of León, Alfonso used the title emperor to assert his standing among the Christian rulers of Spain. He succeeded his father, Bermudo II, in 999. His mother Elvira García and count Menendo González, who raised him in Galicia, acted as his co-regents. Upon the count's death in 1008, Alfonso ruled on his own.
Ramiro II (c. 900 – 1 January 951), son of Ordoño II, was a King of León from 931 until his death. Initially titular king only of a lesser part of the kingdom, he gained the crown of León (and with it, Galicia) after supplanting his brother Alfonso IV and cousin Alfonso Fróilaz in 931.
Ordoño II (c. 873 – June 924) was a king of Galicia from 910, and king of Galicia and León from 914 until his death. He was an energetic and feisty ruler who fought successfully against the Muslims, who still dominated most of the Iberian Peninsula at that time.
Alfonso III (c. 848 – 20 December 910), called the Great, was the king of León, Galicia and Asturias from 866 until his death. He was the son and successor of Ordoño I. In later sources he is the earliest to be called 'Emperor of Spain'.
Leon Battista Alberti (February 14, 1404 – April 25, 1472) was an Italian humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer; he epitomised the Renaissance Man.
Leon Trotsky, born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as the 32nd President of the United States, from 1933 to 1945. A Democrat, he won a record four presidential elections and dominated his party after 1932 as a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war.<br/><br/> His program for relief, recovery and reform, known as the New Deal, involved a great expansion of the role of the federal government in the economy. As a dominant leader of the Democratic Party, he built the New Deal Coalition that brought together and united labor unions, big city machines, ethnic whites, African Americans, and rural white Southerners in support of the party.<br/><br/> The Coalition significantly realigned American politics after 1932, creating the Fifth Party System and defining American liberalism throughout the middle third of the 20th century.
The French Campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in the Orient, ostensibly to protect French trade interests, undermine Britain's access to India, and to establish scientific enterprise in the region. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta.<br/><br/> Despite many decisive victories and an initially successful expedition into Syria, Napoleon and his Armée d'Orient were eventually forced to withdraw by the British army, after sowing political disharmony in France, conflict in Europe, and suffering the defeat of the supporting French fleet at the Battle of the Nile.
Leo II or Leon II (c. 1236 – 1289) was king of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, ruling from 1269 /1270 to 1289.<br/><br/> He was the son of King Hetoum I and Queen Isabella and was a member of the Hetoumid family.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Russian SFSR.<br/><br/> The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time).<br/><br/> In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940.
Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940.
Isabella I (Spanish: Isabel I, Ysabel, anglicised as Elizabeth) (22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504) was Queen of Castile and Leon. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundation for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Painting: Madonna of the Catholic Monarchs, by Fernando Gallego, c. 1490-95.
Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940.
The Bolsheviks, derived from bol'shinstvo, 'majority', were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903.<br/><br/> The Bolsheviks were the majority faction in a crucial vote, hence their name. They ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic which would later become the chief constituent of the Soviet Union in 1922.<br/><br/> The Bolsheviks, founded by Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, were by 1905 a major organization consisting primarily of workers under a democratic internal hierarchy governed by the principle of democratic centralism, who considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary working class of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism.
Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940.
William Quilliam was born in Liverpool to a wealthy Manx family in 1856. His father, Robert Quilliam, was a watch manufacturer. William was educated at the Liverpool Institute and King William's College on the Isle of Man. He began work as a solicitor in 1878, building a successful legal practice in Liverpool. He married Hannah Johnstone in 1879.<br/><br/> Quilliam was brought up a Methodist, but converted to Islam after visiting Morocco to recover from an illness at the age of 17. Returning to Liverpool, he began to promote Islam in Britain as Abdullah Quilliam. He had earlier learned about Islam while visiting southern France in 1882 and crossing over to Algeria and Tunisia.<br/><br/> Quilliam established the Liverpool Muslim Institute at 8 Brougham Terrace, West Derby Road, Liverpool in 1889, opening on Christmas Day. This was England's first mosque, accommodating around a hundred Muslims, This was followed by a Muslim college, headed by Haschem Wilde and Nasrullah Warren, which offered courses for both Muslims and non-Muslims. A weekly Debating and Literary Society within the college attracted non-Muslims.<br/><br/> Quilliam influenced the paths of other converts, including his mother Harriet, his sons, and scientists and intellectuals and his example lead to the conversion of over 150 Englishmen to Islam. Quilliam was influential in advancing knowledge of Islam within the United Kingdom and gained converts through his literary works and the charitable institutions he founded.<br/><br/> An active writer and essayist, he produced a weekly paper, The Crescent, from 1893 until 1908. He published three editions of his The Faith of Islam which, translated into thirteen languages, gained him fame across the Islamic world.
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which dismantled the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Russian SFSR.<br/><br/> The Tsar was forced to abdicate and the old regime was replaced by a provisional government during the first revolution of February 1917 (March in the Gregorian calendar; the older Julian calendar was in use in Russia at the time).<br/><br/> In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional Government was removed and replaced with a Bolshevik (Communist) government.
The Polish–Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921) was an armed conflict that pitted Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine against the Second Polish Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic over the control of an area equivalent to today's Ukraine and parts of modern-day Belarus. At some points the war also threatened Poland's existence as an independent state. It followed on from the Soviet westward offensive of 1918–19.<br/><br/> A formal peace treaty, the Peace of Riga, was signed on 18 March 1921, dividing the disputed territories between Poland and Soviet Russia. The war largely determined the Soviet–Polish border for the period between the World Wars. Much of the territory ceded to Poland in the Treaty of Riga became part of the Soviet Union after World War II, when Poland's eastern borders were redefined by the Allies in close accordance with the British-drawn Curzon Line of 1920.
Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940.
Leon Trotsky (Russian: Лев Дави́дович Тро́цкий; born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein (7 November 1879 – 21 August 1940) was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army.<br/><br/> Trotsky was initially a supporter of the Menshevik Internationalists faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He joined the Bolsheviks immediately prior to the 1917 October Revolution, and eventually became a leader within the Party. During the early days of the Soviet Union, he served first as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs and later as the founder and commander of the Red Army as People's Commissar of Military and Naval Affairs. He was a major figure in the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War (1918–23). He was also among the first members of the Politburo.<br/><br/> After leading a failed struggle of the Left Opposition against the policies and rise of Joseph Stalin in the 1920s and the increasing role of bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, Trotsky was successively removed from power in 1927, expelled from the Communist Party, and finally deported from the Soviet Union in 1929. As the head of the Fourth International, Trotsky continued in exile in Mexico to oppose the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/> An early advocate of Red Army intervention against European fascism, in the late 1930s, Trotsky opposed Stalin's non-aggression pact with Adolf Hitler. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico, by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish-born Soviet agent in August 1940
Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río (7 February 1913 – 18 October 1978) was a Spanish communist who became infamous as the assassin of the Russian Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1940, in Mexico. Declassified archives have shown that he was a Soviet agent.<br/><br/> He served 20 years in Mexican prison for the murder. Joseph Stalin presented him with an Order of Lenin in absentia. Mercader was awarded the title of 'Hero of the Soviet Union' after his release in 1961.<br/><br/> In 1961, Mercader moved to the Soviet Union and was subsequently presented with the country's highest decoration, 'Hero of the Soviet Union', by the head of the KGB Alexander Shelepin. Later, he divided his time between Cuba and the Soviet Union for the rest of his life.<br/><br/> Ramón Mercader died in Havana in 1978. He is buried under the name 'Ramon Ivanovich Lopez' (Рамон Иванович Лопес) in Moscow's Kuntsevo Cemetery.
France: 'The Slave Market'. Oil on canvas painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1866.<br/><br/> Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 – 10 January 1904) was a French painter and sculptor. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects, bringing the academic painting tradition to an artistic climax. He is considered one of the most important painters from this academic period.
Isabella I (Spanish: Isabel I, Ysabel, anglicised as Elizabeth) (22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504) was Queen of Castile and Leon. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundation for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
France: 'Phryne before the Areopagus'. Oil on canvas painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme (11 May 1824 - 10 January 1904) from 1861. The painting depicts the legendary Greek courtesan Phryne, as she is put on trial for impiety. She is acquitted after her defender Hypereides removed her robe to expose her nude form, 'to excite the pity of her judges by the sight of her beauty'.