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October 9, 2020 - January 2, 2021
he resolved to go to England to study English shipbuilding techniques.
Sir Christopher Wren,
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough,
He is a man of very hot temper, soon inflamed, and very brutal in his passion; he raises his natural heat by drinking much brandy,
He is subject to convulsive motions all over his body, and his head seems to be affected with these.
a want of judgment with an instability of temper, appear in him too often and too evidently.
He is mechanically turned, and seems designed by nature rather to be a ship-carpenter than a great prince.
he was fascinated by the Quakers.
eventually met William Penn,
Tower of London
Emperor Leopold
The House of Hapsburg was the oldest reigning dynasty in Europe. For 300 years, in unbroken succession, the family had worn the crown of the Holy Roman Empire,
the Emperor was still the preeminent secular ruler of Christendom.
Ottoman armies surrounded and besieged Vienna in 1683,
Hofburg Palace,
Prince Eugene of Savoy.
Augustus, Elector of Saxony and now also, thanks to the support of both the Emperor and the Tsar, King of Poland.
Peter came to understand that the roots of Western technological achievement lay in the freeing of men’s minds.
He grasped that it had been the Renaissance and the Reformation, neither of which had ever come to Russia, which had broken the bonds of the medieval church and created an environment where independent philosophical and scientific inquiry as well as wide-ranging commercial enterprise could flourish.
For most Orthodox Russians, the beard was a fundamental symbol of religious belief and self-respect.
The lesson of the Streltsy, burned in blood and fire, was one from which we today recoil, but it cemented Peter’s reign.
It gave him the power to work his reforms and—for better or worse—to revolutionize Russian society.
Peter’s moods were strange and unpredictable, given to violent swings between elation and sudden anger.
Then, almost on the eve of Peter’s greatest challenge, the twenty-year war with Sweden which would convert the high-strung, enthusiastic young Tsar into the great conquering Emperor, Lefort died.
refused absolutely Peter’s demand that Russian ships of any kind be allowed access to the Black Sea.
Treaty of Constantinople,
Great Northern War with Sweden,
Charles XII,
The seventeenth century was Sweden’s hour of greatness.
From the accession of seventeen-year-old Gustavus Adolphus in 1611 to the death of Charles XII in 1718, Sweden stood at the pinnacle of its imperial history.
Gustavus Adolphus,
Johann Reinhold von Patkul
Charles XI,
Louis de Vauban,
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough,
commanded the armies of Europe against Louis XIV from 1701 to 1711
Marlborough was the most successful all-round soldier of the age.
The most daring and aggressive soldier of the age was Charles XII of Sweden.
headstrong, willful adolescent.
Time of Troubles,
Battle of Narva
in a calm and orderly way, 10,000 Swedes prepared to advance on 40,000 strongly entrenched Russians.
From that moment on, war became the great object of Charles’ life.
Narva also instilled in Charles a dangerous contempt for Peter and for Russia.
Almost all the cannon of the Russian army, both heavy siege mortars and field artillery, had been lost at Narva
by June 1701 one quarter of all the church bells in Russia were lowered from their towers, melted down and recast as cannon.
Charles, then nineteen years old, made a strategic decision which was to profoundly affect his own life, and Peter’s: He decided to concentrate on the total defeat of Augustus before invading Russia.
Countess Aurora von Königsmark, the most beautiful and most famous of Augustus’ many mistresses.
Charles invaded Poland,
During this breathing space while Charles turned his back on Peter to chase Augustus through the forests and marshes of Poland, Russia began to enjoy some small military successes.
