... In 1506, Magellan went on an expedition sent by Almeida to the east coast of Africa to strengthen Portuguese bases there. The next year, he returned to India, where he participated in trade and in several naval battles against Turkish fleets. In 1509, Magellan sailed with a Portuguese fleet to Malaka, a commercial center in what is now Malaysia. The Malays attacked the Portuguese who went to shore, and Magellan helped rescue his comrades. In 1511, he took part in an expedition that conquered Malaka. After this victory, a Portuguese fleet sailed farther to the Spice Islands which were called the Molucca Islands. Portugal claimed the islands at this time. Magella ...

... republic to empire. When he was young Caesar lived through one of the most horrifying decades in the history of the city of Rome. The city was assaulted twice and captured by Roman armies, first in 87 BC by the leaders of the populares, his Uncle Marius and Cinna. Cinna was killed the year that Caesar had married Cinna’s daughter Cornelia. The second attack upon the city was carried our by Marius’ enemy Sulla, leader of the optimates, in 82 BC on the latter’s return from the East. On each occasion the massacre of political opponents was followed by the confiscation of their property. The proscriptions of Sulla, which preceded the reactionary political legislati ...

... direction of his life, to such an extent that Orson called him 'Dadda'. When Orson was four, his father moved his family to Chicago, possibly to get away from Bernstein's attentions. This plan failed when Bernstein almost immediately followed them. Through Bernstein who was always forcing him to perform, and through his mother musical talents, the young Orson quickly came into contact with Chicago's musical society and walked on in the Chicago Opera's production of 'Samson and Delilah', then in a more important role of Butterfly's love-child Trouble in 'Madame Butterfly'. He also got a temporary job dressed up as a rabbit at Marshall Fields. Shortly after Orson ...

... Bronte (1817-1848), were born in Thornton, Yorkshire. The Bronte children's imaginations transmuted a set of wooden soldiers into characters in a series of stories they wrote about the imaginary kingdom of Angria-the property of Charlotte and Branwell-and the kingdom of Gondal-which belonged to Emily and Anne. A hundred tiny handwritten volumes (started in 1829) of the chronicles of Angria survive, but nothing of the Gondal saga (started in 1834), except some of Emily's poems. The relationship of these stories to the sisters' later novels is a matter of much interest to scholars. In the 1840s Charlotte's discovery of Emily's poems led to the decision to have the sis ...

... steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River until the American Civil War brought an end to travel on the river. In 1861 Clemens served briefly as a volunteer soldier in an irregular company of Confederate cavalry. Later that year he accompanied his brother to the newly created Nevada Territory, where he tried his hand at silver mining. In 1862 he became a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the pseudonym “Mark Twain,” a Mississippi River phrase meaning two fathoms deep. After moving to San Francisco in 1864, Twain met the American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged ...

... 1990. He has been to jail numerous times , but always let off on bail or another technicality. 38 times he has not even gone to court for his assisted suicides. Assisted suicides are still illegal in every state, but he has gotten off on technicalities or some other issue. All of the people he assisted in suicides either were terminally ill or they wanted to be killed due to other serious medical problems. There have been reports of a person beating her son in tennis one week before she killed herself with the help of Jack Kevorkian and his suicide machine, but she was terminally ill and Dr. Kevorkian would not help kill people unless their life was in ...

... breakdown and his family was split up. He was haunted by this early nightmare for most of his life. From then on, he was driven by hatred and a desire for revenge. The early backgrounds of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King were largely responsible for the distinct different responses to American racism. Both men ultimately became towering icons of contemporary African-American culture and had a great influence on black Americans. However, King had a more positive attitude than Malcolm X, believing that through peaceful demonstrations and arguments, blacks will be able to someday achieve full equality with whites. Malcolm X’s despair about life was re ...

... but in effect it meant that peasants now owned the meager parcels of land upon which their survival rested. Their ruler, Czar Nicholas II, ruled aloof of his disorganized nation. His government of appointed officials and men in inherited positions did not represent the people (The Tyranny of Stupidity 120). Even though all of Europe had experienced the Industrial Revolution, Russia had precious little machinery. To obtain more advanced machines, the government traded grain to other countries in exchange for machinery, even though it meant that more people would starve (Haney 17). Compound this with the devastation and desperation brought on shortly thereafte ...

... new Canadian railway from Montreal to th e Pacific Coast. He was in charge of the major surveys across the p rairies and through the Rocky Mountains. He proposed constructing the ra ilway along a northerly route through Edmonton and the Yellowhead Pass and then turning S to Burrard Inlet on the Pacific. Altrough his spe cific recommendations regarding the route were not followed, his extens ive survey work of various routes, including the Kicking Horse Pass t hrough which the Canadian Pacific main line was built , greatly facilita ted Canadian railway construction. In the early years of the 20th ce ntury the Canadian Northern railway work. He was a strong ...

... Henry was the second son and the third child of his father. Henry the VIII died in 1509, the only reason Henry would become king is because of his brothers, Arthur, death in April of 1502. Soon after that, Henry would marry his first wife, his brother (Arthur's) widow, Catherine of Aragon. Many wifes would follow after her. During most of his early reign, Henry relied on Thomas Cardinal Wosley to do much of the political and religious activities. Henry soon got tired of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, so he decides that he doesn't want to be married to her anymore, so he tells Thomas Wosley to talk to the pope so he can divorce Catherine. But, Cardinal Wo ...