.... of the war. These alliances however took a more aggressive tone in the hands of Bismarck’s successors. Also Bismarck’s alliance system was too intricate for anybody other than himself to maintain. While he was alive the alliances preserved peace but in the hands of William the 2nd these alliance were destroyed. Bismarck’s policy was to keep France isolated however with William refusing to renew the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. France now had an ally thus resulting in the signing of the Franco-Russian Entente in 1891. In 1904 Britain and France formed a non-military alliance called the Entente Cordial. As a result at the outbreak of war Eur .....

.... the apprentice of Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. In Verrocchio's workshop Leonardo was introduced to painting and sculpture in marble and bronze. In 1472 he was entered in the painters guild of Florence, and in 1476 he was still considered Verrocchios assistant. In 1478 Leonardo became an independent master. His first commission, to paint an altarpiece for the chapel of the plazzo vecchio, the Florentine town hall, was never executed. The period of Italian art in which lived is called high Renaissance. In the course of the fifteenth century a long chain of early Renaissance artists, mainly of Florent .....

.... logical evidence of the cultures from which they came. The Ancient Egyptians had a very interesting background and culture which led to very interesting myths. In Ancient Egypt the father was the head of the family, and upon his death the son stepped into the head position. Due to a loose culture the women had almost as many rights as men. Women could own land, buy and sell goods, make a will, and obtain a divorce. In Egypt like in most other places only a small percentage of boys and girls attended school, and they were from upper class families. Most boys took on their fathers trade while the girls were taught by their mothers the ways of .....

.... and causing the reader too see the characters in each book very differently. In 1959 the Clutter family was murdered in a tiny Kansas town called Holcomb. Six years later Truman Capote wrote a very detailed book about the whole case, from the day of the murder to the court case prosecuting the two murderers, Dick and Perry. Although he wasn’t there when the four murders happened, through word choice, description and characterization he creates an accurate portrait of the many intense events surrounding such a tragic story. In comparison, in 1996 esteemed climber Rob Hall led an expedition of moderately experienced climbers attempting to climb Mt. E .....

.... under the signature "A Bostonian". The poems were heavily influenced from Byron and showed of a youthful attitude. Later in 1827 Edgar enlisted in the Army under the name Edgar A Perry where his quarrels with John Allan continued. Edgar did well in the army but in 1829 he left and decided to apply for a cadetship at West Point. Before he was able to enter West Point Edgar published a book entitled "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and minor poems", this time the book was published, not anonymously, but under the name Edgar A. Poe, where the middle initial acknowledged John Allan's name. Before Edgar left West Point he received financial aid from his fellow ca .....

.... squares of the other two sides. That theory, and many others, are still used today. Another man, Euclid, was very important in today's mathematics. He compiled the Elements of Geometry, which remained in use in many classrooms until very recently (including Montgomery). Sadly, Pythagoras, and other mathematicians, hit a roadblock which stopped mathematics almost completely until modern times. Irrational numbers scared them, and they decided that something irrational had no place in the rational world. Of course, today we have overcome those fears, and there are several irrational numbers which are indespensible, like pi. The Greeks also evolved .....

.... ostensible purity, allows the mishandling of human life to the degree of slavery. By relating Christianity directly to slavery, his listeners must question the validity of their Christian doctrines in relation to the institution of slavery. In doing so, they must eliminate their acceptance of one of these traditions; the odds are that Christianity holds a much more loyal following than slavery, in which case slavery will be given up as a practice. Douglass also quotes from Psalms 137:1-6, and the ludicrous concept that slaveholders expect their slaves to be joyous in their state of bondage is the essential meaning of the passage he chooses as it .....

.... cities of tens of thousands. They also had a liking for self-mutilation, warfare, and a prolonged torture of captives. The Mayas had warfare with rival cities frequently. For the most part the Mayas did this to capture aristocrats for torture and sacrifice. If the Mayas sacrificed fewer humans than the Aztecs, against whom they often had been held up as superior, they tortured their victims more viciously. One way they would torture people is, in ancient ball games, like Roman gladiatorial contests, pitted captives were against one another for their lives; the heads of losers were sometimes used for balls. In this selection Reilly mentions .....

.... high, but eventually lead to large market crashes. These market crashes, combined with the maldistribution of wealth, caused the American economy to capsize. The "roaring twenties" was an era when our country prospered tremendously. However, the rewards of the "Coolidge Prosperity" of the 1920's were not shared evenly among all Americans. According to a study done by the Brookings Institute, the top 0.1% of Americans had a combined income equal to the bottom 42% in 1929. That same top 0.1% of Americans in 1929 controlled 34% of all savings, while 80% of Americans had no savings at all. Automotive industry mogul Henry Ford provides a striking .....

.... the same day every year. In those days the average village in Western Europe celebrated at least 17 festivals annually, not counting family occasions and saints' days. Some festivals, such as Carnival, lasted several days or sometimes even several weeks. In the Netherlands Carnival started every year at the 11th of November (St. Martin) and culminated in a big festival of 'Dranck, pleijsier ende vrouwen' (Drink, fun and women) at the end of the Carnival period, preceding the period of Lent. Festivals were meant to take the minds of the people off their everyday life , off the hard times and their work. Everyday life in Early Modern Europe was fil .....