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December 30, 2011 - May 25, 2012
like other men, the ministers and the executors of the laws were all dead or sick or shut up with their families, so that no duties were carried out…. Every man was therefore able to do as he pleased.”
Many enraged European Christians blamed Jews for the disease,
Many Europeans also began to question the teachings of the Catholic Church and the existing political order.
Scientists continue to debate the cause of the Black Death. The leading candidate, bubonic plague, still exists but can be treated easily with antibiotics.
about 5 percent of victims survived the epidemic, and some people were able to avoid catching it entirely.
one work as the Great American Novel, and thus far, most have settled on The Great Gatsby
Gatsby is a paradox on nearly every level. He lives and breathes the American spirit of initiative, idealism, and upward mobility, but he does so entirely in pursuit of a woman who does not merit the effort.
Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, were infamous figures in Jazz Age society, their tumultuous life plagued by Zelda’s notorious emotional instability and Fitzgerald’s alcoholism.
one of the most famous paintings of a biblical subject in Western history.
From left to right appear the disciples Bartholomew, James the Minor, Andrew, Peter, Judas, and John. Jesus appears in the exact center. He is followed by Thomas, James the Major, Philip, Matthew, Thaddeus, and Simon.
da Vinci’s fresco was meant to capture the precise moment of Jesus Christ’s pronouncement, “One of you is about to betray me” (Matthew 26:21). The apostles are thus shown reacting to His words,
he experimented with an oil-and-tempera-based medium, which proved to be highly unstable; cracks and mildew appeared within a few years.
The newly restored fresco was reopened to the public in 1999 after the refectory was equipped with climate control.
some parts of the sun’s surface are cooler than others. Sunspots, which are roughly the size of our planet, appear dark in color because they are more than 2,000 degrees cooler than the surrounding surface.
sunspots appear in pairs, each having an opposite magnetic charge.
solar flares, explosions on the surface of the sun that release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.
Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) used sunspots to track the rotation of the sun.
He influenced almost every composer to come after him,
In 1722, he became director of music for the four churches and entire city of Leipzig, where he died in 1750 just a year after completing his monumental Mass in B minor.
In contrast to the bleak track record of other disciplines during the Middle Ages, the philosophy of this period was extremely rich, and it encompasses a number of outstanding figures.
first major medieval philosopher was Saint Augustine (354–430 AD), who attempted to synthesize Plato’s philosophy with Christianity.
Boethius (480–c. 525 AD), best known now for his book The Consolation of Philosophy. However, his most important contributions to the field were his translations of Greek philosophy into Latin. Boethius was one of the last Western Europeans to know Greek, and after his death, knowledge of the language disappeared from European culture for centuries.
rediscovery of ancient Greek texts in the thirteenth century,
major later medieval philosophers—Saint Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274), John Duns Scotus (c. 1265–1308), and William of Ockham (c. 1284–1347)—was heavily influenced by Aristotle,
Ockham is best known for the principle that bears his name, “Ockham’s razor,” usually understood to mean that the simplest theory should always be preferred or that theories should be as simple as possible.
Talmud consists of two parts. The first is the Mishna. When the Torah was originally revealed to Moses, it is believed that the written text was accompanied by a set of oral teachings.
second part of the Talmud is the Gemara.
Gemara consists of rabbinic discussions of the Mishna. Whereas the Mishna contains absolute opinions, the Gemara is written as a dialogue of differing opinions.
Joan of Arc (1412–1431) was a young peasant woman who took command, at the astonishing age of seventeen, of the medieval French armies fighting the English.
captured, convicted of heresy, and promptly burned at the stake.
In visions that she experienced as a teenager, Joan claimed that God wanted her to drive the English from France.
Joan was officially made a saint of the Catholic Church in 1920.
Before allowing Joan to take charge of his armies, the French king had his mother-in-law examine Joan to ensure that she was a virgin. She was.
John Steinbeck (1902–1968) infused his works with the local color of his native California.
drew unprecedented attention to the plight of the Depression-era poor.
considered the prototype of the Renaissance female portrait.
identity of the woman pictured in Mona Lisa remains a mystery.
da Vinci never delivered the painting to any patron, but kept it for himself until his death in 1519.
da Vinci’s superb use of sfumato, that is, soft, hazy outlines that create a mysterious mood.
In 1911, it was stolen from the Louvre only to reappear in a hotel room in Florence two years later. After someone sprayed acid and damaged the lower half of Mona Lisa in 1956, the painting was hung behind a double layer of protective glass.
1960s, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, performed a frightening series of experiments on obedience.
Milgram’s finding appalled the academic community of the 1960s, both because of his ethically questionable methods and his gruesome results.
his research clearly demonstrated how ordinary people could be induced to perform inhumane acts simply by the presence of authority.
more psychological distance the subject had from the victim, the more likely they were to foll...
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The Milgram studies have been replicated in Australia, Germany, Jordan, and other countries, all with similar results.
2. Milgram found identical rates of obedience for men and women.
six concertos, composed while Bach was living at Cöthen, were presented as a commission to the Margrave of Brandenburg
concertos are noted for Bach’s ambitious combination of solo instruments and elegant counterpoint. The Brandenburg Concertos are also seen as the best blend of the German baroque’s imperious style and the lighthearted gusto of composers like Antonio Vivaldi.
Bach became deeply interested in Vivaldi and other Italian composers, and he wrote out keyboard reductions of their orchestral pieces as an exercise to better his own work.
three kinds of argument for the existence of God.
