THE ALHAMBRA DECREE, EVICT TO AVOID UNPAID DEBTS

Today, The Grandma has returned to the library. She has been reading about the Alhambra Decree, the Edict of Expulsion that ordered the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon.

 

Lots of things have been written about this terrible Decree, but a few of them talk about the main advantage of expulsing Jews, and it was not about religion but a strategy from the Catholic Monarchs about avoiding unpaid debts with some members of the Jewish community, who were their moneylenders.

 

The Alhambra Decree, also known as the Edict of Expulsion, in Spanish Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada, was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.

The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practicing Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism.

Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion.

As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion, of Spain’s estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion.

An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.

The edict was formally and symbolically revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second Vatican Council.

This was a full century after Jews had been openly practicing their religion in Spain and synagogues were once more legal places of worship under Spain's Laws of Religious Freedom.

In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted Spanish citizenship to the entire Sephardic Jewish diaspora. In 2014, the government of Spain passed a law allowing dual citizenship to Jewish descendants who apply, to compensate for shameful events in the country's past. Thus, Sephardi Jews who can prove they are the descendants of those Jews expelled from Spain because of the Alhambra Decree can become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality.

More information: The Atlantic

By the end of the 8th century, Muslim forces had conquered and settled most of the Iberian Peninsula. Under Islamic law, the Jews, who had lived in the region since at least Roman times, were considered People of the Book, which was a protected status.

Compared to the repressive policies of the Visigothic Kingdom, who, starting in the sixth-century had enacted a series of anti-Jewish statutes which culminated in their forced conversion and enslavement, the tolerance of the Muslim Moorish rulers of al-Andalus allowed Jewish communities to thrive.

Jewish merchants were able to trade freely across the Islamic world, which allowed them to flourish, and made Jewish enclaves in Muslim Iberian cities great centers of learning and commerce.

This led to a flowering of Jewish culture, as Jewish scholars were able to gain favor in Muslim courts as skilled physicians, diplomats, translators, and poets. Although Jews never enjoyed equal status to Muslims, in some Taifas, such as Granada, Jewish men were appointed to very high offices, including Grand Vizier.

The Reconquista, or the gradual reconquest of Muslim Iberia by the Christian kingdoms in the North, was driven by a powerful religious motivation: to reclaim Iberia for Christendom following the Umayyad conquest of Hispania centuries before. By the 14th century, most of the Iberian Peninsula had been reconquered by the Christian kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, León, Galicia, Navarre, and Portugal.

More information: eSefarad

During the Christian re-conquest, the Muslim kingdoms in Spain became less welcoming to the dhimmi. In the late twelfth century, the Muslims in al-Andalus invited the fanatical Almohad dynasty from North Africa to push the Christians back to the North. After they gained control of the Iberian Peninsula, the Almohads offered the Sephardim a choice between expulsion, conversion, and death.

Many Jewish people fled to other parts of the Muslim world, and also to the Christian kingdoms, which initially welcomed them. In Christian Spain, Jews functioned as courtiers, government officials, merchants, and moneylenders. Therefore, the Jewish community was both useful to the ruling classes and to an extent protected by them.

As the Reconquista drew to a close, overt hostility against Jews in Christian Spain became more pronounced, finding expression in brutal episodes of violence and oppression.

In the early fourteenth century, the Christian kings vied to prove their piety by allowing the clergy to subject the Jewish population to forced sermons and disputations. More deadly attacks came later in the century from mobs of angry Catholics, led by popular preachers, who would storm into the Jewish quarter, destroy synagogues, and break into houses, forcing the inhabitants to choose between conversion and death.

More information: Kyra Cornelius Kramer

Thousands of Jews sought to escape these attacks by converting to Christianity. These Jewish converts were commonly called conversos, New Christians, or marranos; the latter two terms were used as insults. At first, these conversions seemed an effective solution to the cultural conflict: many converso families met with social and commercial success. But eventually their success made these new Catholics unpopular with their neighbours, including some of the clergy of the Church and Spanish aristocrats competing with them for influence over the royal families.

By the mid-fifteenth century, the demands of the Old Christians, that the Catholic Church and the monarchy differentiate them from the conversos, led to the first limpieza de sangre laws, which restricted opportunities for converts.

These suspicions on the part of Christians were only heightened by the fact that some of the coerced conversions were undoubtedly insincere. Some, but not all, conversos had understandably chosen to salvage their social and commercial positions or their lives by the only option open to them -baptism and embrace of Christianity- while privately adhering to their Jewish practice and faith.

Recently converted families who continued to intermarry were especially viewed with suspicion. These secret practitioners are commonly referred to as crypto-Jews or marranos.

The existence of crypto-Jews was a provocation for secular and ecclesiastical leaders who were already hostile toward Spain's Jewry.

For their part, the Jewish community viewed conversos with compassion, because Jewish law held that conversion under threat of violence was not necessarily legitimate.

Although the Catholic Church was also officially opposed to forced conversion, under ecclesiastical law all baptisms were lawful, and once baptized, converts were not allowed to rejoin their former religion. The uncertainty over the sincerity of Jewish converts added fuel to the fire of antisemitism in 15th century Spain.

The Spanish expulsion was succeeded by at least five expulsions from other European countries, but the expulsion of the Jews from Spain was both the largest of its kind and, officially, the longest lasting in western European history.

Hostility towards the Jews in Spain was brought to a climax during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella. Their marriage in 1469, which formed a personal union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile, with coordinated policies between their distinct kingdoms, eventually led to the final unification of Spain.

Although their initial policies towards the Jews were protective, Ferdinand and Isabella were disturbed by reports claiming that most Jewish converts to Christianity were insincere in their conversion.

As mentioned above, some claims that conversos continued to practice Judaism in secret were true, but the Old Christians exaggerated the scale of the phenomenon. It was also claimed that Jews were trying to draw conversos back into the Jewish fold.

More information: Los Angeles Times

In 1478, Ferdinand and Isabella made a formal application to Rome to set up an Inquisition in Castile to investigate these and other suspicions.

In 1487, King Ferdinand promoted the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition Tribunals in Castile. In the Crown of Aragon, it had been first instituted in the 13th century to combat the Albigensian heresy. However, the focus of this new Inquisition was to find and punish conversos who were practicing Judaism in secret.

These issues came to a head during Ferdinand and Isabella's final conquest of Granada. The independent Islamic Emirate of Granada had been a tributary state to Castile since 1238.

Jews and conversos played an important role during this campaign because they had the ability to raise money and acquire weapons through their extensive trade networks. 

This perceived increase in Jewish influence further infuriated the Old Christians and the hostile elements of the clergy.

Finally, in 1491 in preparation for an imminent transition to Castilian territory, the Treaty of Granada was signed by Emir Muhammad XII and the Queen of Castile, protecting the religious freedom of the Muslims there.

More information: The Times of Israel

By 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella had won the Battle of Granada and completed the Catholic Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic forces. However, the Jewish population emerged from the campaign more hated by the populace and less useful to the monarchs.

The king and queen issued the Alhambra Decree less than three months after the surrender of Granada. Although Isabella was the force behind the decision, her husband Fernando did not oppose it. That her confessor had just changed from the tolerant Hernando de Talavera to the very intolerant Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros suggests an increase in royal hostility towards the Jews.

The text of the decree accused the Jews of trying to subvert the holy Catholic faith by attempting to draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs.

After the decree was passed, Spain's entire Jewish population was given only four months to either convert to Christianity or leave the country. The edict promised the Jews royal protection and security for the effective three-month window before the deadline.

 

They were permitted to take their belongings with them, excluding gold or silver or minted money or other things prohibited by the laws of our kingdoms.

In practice, however, the Jews had to sell anything they could not carry: their land, their houses, and their libraries, and converting their wealth to a more portable form proved difficult.

The market in Spain was saturated with these goods, which meant the prices were artificially lowered for the months before the deadline.

As a result, much of the wealth of the Jewish community remained in Spain. The punishment for any Jew who did not convert or leave by the deadline was summary execution.

The Sephardic Jews migrated to four major areas: North Africa, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, and Italy. Some who emigrated to avoid conversion dispersed throughout the region of North Africa known as the Maghreb.

A majority of Jewish population had converted to Christianity during the waves of religious persecutions prior to the Decree -a total of 200,000 converts according to Joseph Pérez.

More information: University of Washington

The main objective of the expulsion of practicing Jews was ensuring the sincerity of the conversions of such a large convert population. Of the 100,000 Jews that remained true to their faith by 1492, an additional number chose to convert and join the converso community rather than face expulsion.

Recent conversos were subject to additional suspicion by the Inquisition, which had been established to persecute religious heretics, but in Spain and Portugal was focused on finding crypto-Jews. Although Judaism was not considered a heresy, professing Christianity while engaging in Jewish practices was heretical.

Additionally, Limpieza de sangre statutes instituted legal discrimination against converso descendants, barring them from certain positions and forbidding them from emigrating to the Americas. For years, families with urban origins who had extensive trade connections, and people who were learned and multilingual were suspected of having Jewish ancestry.

According to the prejudice of the time, a person with Jewish blood was untrustworthy and inferior. Such measures slowly faded away as converso identity was forgotten and this community merged into Spain's dominant Catholic culture. This process lasted until the eighteenth century, with a few exceptions, most notably the Chuetas of the island of Majorca, where discrimination lasted into early 20th Century.

A Y chromosome DNA test conducted by the University of Leicester and the Pompeu Fabra University has indicated an average of nearly 20% for Spaniards having some direct patrilineal descent from populations from the Near East which colonized the region either in historical times, such as Jews and Phoenicians, or during earlier prehistoric Neolithic migrations.

Between the 90,000 Jews who converted under the Visigoth persecutions, and the 100,000+ Jews who converted in the years leading up to expulsion, it is likely that many of these people have Jewish ancestry. Genetic studies have explored local beliefs in the American South West that Spanish Americans are the descendants of conversos.

More information: NCBI

Anti-Semitism is the hatred that never dies.
Violence that begins with the Jews never ends with them.
All of this is true.
What's also true is that anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred
in the world because individual people have sustained

it in every generation.
It cannot be defeated until we look these people 

and their ideologies in the face.

Bari Weiss

BAGHDAD, THE GREAT CITY THAT WAS FOUNDED IN 762

Today, The Grandma has gone to the library to search more information about Baghdad, one of the most beautiful cities of the world, the capital of Iraq and an ancient city that was founded on a day like today in 762.

Baghdad, in Arabic بَغْدَاد‎, in Kurdish بەغداد, is the capital of Iraq and is, after Cairo, the second-largest city of the Arab world and fourth largest in the Middle East with a city population of 8.1 million.

Located along the Tigris, near the ruins of the ancient Akkadian city of Babylon and the ancient Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon, Baghdad was founded in the 8th century and became the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and the Caliphate's most notable major development project.

Within a short time, Baghdad evolved into a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual centre of the Muslim world. This, in addition to housing several key academic institutions, including the House of Wisdom, as well as hosting a multiethnic and multi-religious environment, garnered the city a worldwide reputation as the Center of Learning.

Baghdad was the largest city in the world for much of the Abbasid era during the Islamic Golden Age, peaking at a population of more than a million. 

The city was largely destroyed at the hands of the Mongol Empire in 1258, resulting in a decline that would linger through many centuries due to frequent plagues and multiple successive empires.

More information: Remember Baghdad

With the recognition of Iraq as an independent state, formerly the British Mandate of Mesopotamia in 1932, Baghdad gradually regained some of its former prominence as a significant centre of Arab culture, with a population variously estimated at 6 or over 7 million. Compared to its large population, it has a small area at just 673 square kilometres.

The city has faced severe infrastructural damage, due to the Iraq War that lasted from 2003 until 2011, and the subsequent insurgency and later the renewed war that lasted from 2013 until 2017, resulting in a substantial loss of cultural heritage and historical artefacts. During this period, Baghdad had one of the highest rates of terrorist attacks in the world, however terrorist attacks have been rare since the territorial defeat of ISIL in Iraq in late 2017.

The name Baghdad is pre-Islamic, and its origin is disputed. The site where the city of Baghdad developed has been populated for millennia. By the 8th century AD, several villages had developed there, including a Persian hamlet called Baghdad, the name which would come to be used for the Abbasid metropolis.

Arab authors, realizing the pre-Islamic origins of Baghdad's name, generally looked for its roots in Middle Persian. They suggested various meanings, the most common of which was bestowed by God.

More information: BBC

Modern scholars generally tend to favour this etymology, which views the word as a compound of bagh, god and dād, given. In Old Persian the first element can be traced to boghu and is related to Indic bhag and Slavic bog, god, A similar term in Middle Persian is the name Mithradāt (Mehrdad in New Persian), known in English by its Hellenistic form Mithridates, meaning Given by Mithra (dāt is the more archaic form of dād, related to Sanskrit dāt, Latin dat and English donor).

There are a number of other locations in the wider region whose names are compounds of the word bagh, including Baghlan and Bagram in Afghanistan, Baghshan in Iran, and Baghdati in Georgia, which likely share the same etymological origins.

A few authors have suggested older origins for the name, in particular the name Bagdadu or Hudadu that existed in Old Babylonian, spelled with a sign that can represent both bag and hu, and the Babylonian Talmudic name of a place called Baghdatha. Some scholars suggested Aramaic derivations.

When the Abbasid caliph, Al-Mansur, founded a completely new city for his capital, he chose the name Madinat al-Salaam or City of Peace. This was the official name on coins, weights, and other official usage, although the common people continued to use the old name. By the 11th century, Baghdad became almost the exclusive name for the world-renowned metropolis.

After the fall of the Umayyads, the first Muslim dynasty, the victorious Abbasid rulers wanted their own capital from which they could rule. They chose a site north of the Sassanid capital of Ctesiphon, and on 30 July 762 the caliph Al-Mansur commissioned the construction of the city. It was built under the supervision of the Barmakids.

Mansur believed that Baghdad was the perfect city to be the capital of the Islamic empire under the Abbasids.

The Muslim historian al-Tabari reported an ancient prediction by Christian monks that a lord named Miklas would one day build a spectacular city around the area of Baghdad. When Mansur heard the story, he became very joyful, for legend has it, he was called Miklas as a child. Mansur loved the site so much he is quoted saying: This is indeed the city that I am to found, where I am to live, and where my descendants will reign afterward.

The city's growth was helped by its excellent location, based on at least two factors: it had control over strategic and trading routes along the Tigris, and it had an abundance of water in a dry climate. Water exists on both the north and south ends of the city, allowing all households to have a plentiful supply, which was very uncommon during this time. The city of Baghdad soon became so large that it had to be divided into three judicial districts: Madinat al-Mansur (the Round City), al-Sharqiyya (Karkh) and Askar al-Mahdi (on the West Bank).

Baghdad eclipsed Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians, which was located some 30 km to the southeast. Today, all that remains of Ctesiphon is the shrine town of Salman Pak, just to the south of Greater Baghdad. Ctesiphon itself had replaced and absorbed Seleucia, the first capital of the Seleucid Empire, which had earlier replaced the city of Babylon.

According to the traveller Ibn Battuta, Baghdad was one of the largest cities, not including the damage it has received. The residents are mostly Hanbal. 

More information: The Guardian I & II

Baghdad is also home to the grave of Abu Hanifa where there is a cell and a mosque above it. The Sultan of Baghdad, Abu Said Bahadur Khan, was a Tatar king who embraced Islam.

In its early years, the city was known as a deliberate reminder of an expression in the Qur'an, when it refers to Paradise. It took four years to build (764–768). Mansur assembled engineers, surveyors, and art constructionists from around the world to come together and draw up plans for the city.

Over 100,000 construction workers came to survey the plans; many were distributed salaries to start the building of the city. July was chosen as the starting time because two astrologers, Naubakht Ahvazi and Mashallah, believed that the city should be built under the sign of the lion, Leo. Leo is associated with fire and symbolizes productivity, pride, and expansion.

The bricks used to make the city were 460 mm on all four sides. Abu Hanifah was the counter of the bricks, and he developed a canal, which brought water to the work site for both human consumption and the manufacture of the bricks. Marble was also used to make buildings throughout the city, and marble steps led down to the river's edge.

The basic framework of the city consists of two large semicircles about 19 km in diameter. The city was designed as a circle about 2 km in diameter, leading it to be known as the Round City. The original design shows a single ring of residential and commercial structures along the inside of the city walls, but the final construction added another ring inside the first.

More information: The New York Times

Within the city there were many parks, gardens, villas, and promenades. There was a large sanitation department, many fountains and public baths, and unlike contemporary European cities at the time, streets were frequently washed free of debris and rubbish.

In fact, by the time of Harun al-Rashid, Baghdad had a few thousand hammams. These baths increased public hygiene and served as a way for the religious to perform ablutions as prescribed by Islam. Moreover, entry fees were usually so low that almost everyone could afford them.

In the centre of the city lay the mosque, as well as headquarters for guards. The purpose or use of the remaining space in the centre is unknown.

The circular design of the city was a direct reflection of the traditional Persian Sasanian urban design.

The Sasanian city of Gur in Fars, built 500 years before Baghdad, is nearly identical in its general circular design, radiating avenues, and the government buildings and temples at the centre of the city. This style of urban planning contrasted with Ancient Greek and Roman urban planning, in which cities are designed as squares or rectangles with streets intersecting each other at right angles.

Baghdad was a busy city during the day and had many attractions at night. There were cabarets and taverns, halls for backgammon and chess, live plays, concerts, and acrobats. On street corners, storytellers engaged crowds with tales such as those later told in Arabian Nights.

More information: UNESCO

I miss aspects of being in the Arab world -the language-
and there is a tranquillity in these cities with great rivers.
Whether it's Cairo or Baghdad, you sit there, and you think,
'This river has flown here for thousands of years.'
There are magical moments in these places.

Zaha Hadid

MARTINA MCBRIDE, NEO-TRADITIONAL COUNTRY MUSIC

Today, The Grandma has decided to listen to some music, and she has chosen one of her favourite genres, country music, and one of the best singers, Martina McBride, who was born on a day like today in 1966.

Martina Mariea McBride (born July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer-songwriter and record producer known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material.

McBride signed to RCA Records in 1991, and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, The Time Has Come. Over time, she developed a pop-styled crossover sound, similar to Shania Twain and Faith Hill, and had a string of major hit singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart. Five of these singles went to No. 1 on the country chart between 1995 and 2001, and one peaked at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 2003.

McBride has fourteen studio albums, two greatest hits compilations, one live album, as well as two additional compilation albums. Eight of her studio albums and two of her compilations have an RIAA Gold certification, or higher. In the U.S., she has sold over 14 million albums. In addition, McBride has won the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year award four times, tied with Reba McEntire for the third-most wins, and the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist award three times. She is also a 14-time Grammy Award nominee.

More information: Martina McBride

McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, on July 29, 1966. She has two brothers, Martin and Steve, who play in her concert band as of 2017, and a sister, Gina.

McBride's parents, Daryl and Jeanne Schiff, owned a dairy farm. Daryl, who was also a cabinetry shop owner, exposed her to country music at a young age. Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she sang for hours along to the records of such popular artists as Reba McEntire, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith, and Patsy Cline.

Around the age of eight or nine, Martina began singing with a band her father fronted, The Schiffters. As she grew older, her role in the band progressively increased, from simply singing, to also playing keyboard with them. She enjoyed performing in her early years.

McBride began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita instead. Then, in 1987, Schiff gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from studio engineer John McBride. In 1988, the two married.

After marrying, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989 with the hope of beginning a career in country music. John McBride joined Garth Brooks's sound crew and later became his concert production manager. She occasionally joined her husband on the road and helped sell Garth Brooks souvenirs.

In 1990, impressed by her enthusiastic spirit, Brooks offered her the position as his opening act provided she could obtain a recording contract.

During this time, while her husband was working with country artists Charlie Daniels and Ricky Van Shelton, he also helped produce her demo tape, which helped her gain a recording contract with RCA Nashville Records in 1991.

More information: Twitter-Martina McBride

McBride released her debut studio album by RCA Records in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. The Way That I Am was McBride's second album.

Released in 1995, Wild Angels accounted for another top five hit in its lead single Safe in the Arms of Love, which had previously been recorded by both Wild Choir and Baillie & the Boys, and was concurrently released in Canada by Michelle Wright at the time of McBride's version.

Still Holding On, a duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to her album Evolution and his album Nothin' but the Taillights, and Valentine, a collaboration with pop pianist Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This.

McBride's sixth studio album, Emotion, was released in 1999.

In 2003, McBride released her seventh studio album, Martina, which celebrated womanhood.

In 2004, McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 and 1999, which tied her for the most wins in that category with Reba McEntire.

After finding success in country pop-styled music, McBride released her next studio album, Timeless, in 2005, which consisted of country covers.

In 2007, McBride released her ninth studio album, Waking Up Laughing. McBride wrapped up production of her tenth studio album in late 2008.

McBride exited RCA in November 2010 and signed with Republic Nashville. She began working on a new studio album with producer Byron Gallimore.

In July 2017, McBride revealed she is planning on releasing a Christmas album, of which she said It won't have as many hymns on it. It will be more things like 'Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town' and 'It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas'.

More information: Southern Living

 I just love where I am right now in my career.
I love country music. I don't ever feel restricted by the genre.
I've been able to have a solid career that 

we've built one step at a time and a family
 I know that I'm in a good place.

Martina McBride

IAN THORPE, THE AUSSIE 'THORPEDO' SWIMS TO GLORY

Today, The Grandma has been watching the Olympic Games that are celebrating in Tokyo. She loves swimming, and she has remembered one of the greatest swimmers of all time, the Australian Ian Thorpe, who became the first swimmer to win six gold medals at a single World Championship meeting, on a day like today in 2001.

Ian James Thorpe, (born 13 October 1982) is an Australian retired swimmer who specialized in freestyle, but also competed in backstroke and the individual medley.

He has won five Olympic gold medals, the most won by any Australian, along with fellow swimmer Emma McKeon. With three gold and two silver medals, Thorpe was the most successful athlete at the 2000 Summer Olympics, held in his hometown of Sydney.

At the age of 14, Thorpe became the youngest male ever to represent Australia, and his victory in the 400-metre freestyle at the 1998 Perth World Championships made him the youngest-ever individual male World Champion.

After that victory, Thorpe dominated the 400 m freestyle, winning the event at every Olympic, World, Commonwealth and Pan Pacific Swimming Championships until his break after the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

At the 2001 World Aquatics Championships, he became the first person to win six gold medals in one World Championship. Aside from 13 individual long-course world records, Thorpe anchored the Australian relay teams, numbering the victories in the 4 × 100 m and the 4 × 200 m freestyle relays in Sydney among his five relay world record. His wins in the 200 m and 400 m and his bronze in the 100 m freestyle at the 2004 Summer Olympics made him the only male to have won medals in the 100–200–400 combination.

More information: Instagram-Ian Thorpe

He acquired the nickname Thorpedo because of his speed in swimming. 

Thorpe announced his retirement from competitive swimming in November 2006, citing waning motivation; he made a brief comeback in 2011 and 2012.

In total, Thorpe has won eleven World Championship gold medals; this is the fifth-highest number of gold medals won by any male swimmer.

Thorpe was the first person to have been named Swimming World Swimmer of the Year four times, and was the Australian Swimmer of the Year from 1999 to 2003. His athletic achievements made him one of Australia's most popular athletes, and he was recognized as the Young Australian of the Year in 2000.

Born in Sydney, Thorpe grew up in the suburb of Milperra and hailed from a sporting family. His father Ken was a promising cricketer at junior level, representing Bankstown District Cricket Club in Sydney's district competition.

As a young child, Thorpe was sidelined by an allergy to chlorine. As a result, he did not swim in his first race until a school carnival at the age of seven. The allergy forced Thorpe to swim with his head out of the water; despite this ungainly technique, he won the race, primarily because of his significant size advantage.

Thorpe competed at the 1996 Australian Age Championships in Brisbane, winning five gold, two silver and two bronze medals. His times in the 400 m freestyle and 200 m backstroke qualified him for the Australian Championships, which doubled as selection trials for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

Frost knew that Thorpe had no realistic chance of making the top two in any event, which would have meant Olympic selection at only 13 years and six months.

Aged 14 years and 5 months, Thorpe became the 463rd and youngest ever male to be selected for the Australian team, surpassing John Konrads' record by one month.

In his first individual final at international level, Thorpe was fifth at the 300 m mark, but fought back to claim silver in the 400 m freestyle behind Hackett in a time of 3 min 49.64 s. His finishing burst was to become a trademark, and his time would have been enough to win silver at the Atlanta Olympics.

Thorpe's first international appearance in his home country, at the 1998 World Championships in Perth, began with the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. Swimming the third leg after Klim and Hackett, Thorpe broke away from 200 m butterfly Olympic champion Tom Malchow to set a split time of 1 min 47.67 s, just 0.26 seconds slower than Klim's winning time in the 200 m final.

By the end of Thorpe's leg, the Australians were two seconds ahead of the world record pace, and three seconds ahead of the Americans, having extended the lead by two body lengths. Although anchorman Kowalski finished outside the world record, it was the first time that Australia had won the event at the global level since 1956.

More information: Twitter-Ian Thorpe

Thorpe's next competition was in March at the Australian Championships in Melbourne, which were selection trials for the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Malaysia.

Thorpe's improvement continued when he defeated Klim in the 200 m freestyle in 1 min 47.24 s, faster than Klim's winning time at the World Championship two months earlier.

Thorpe's time was a Commonwealth record and with it, he secured his first national title. He then claimed the 400 m freestyle title from Hackett and clocked 50.36 s in the 100 m freestyle. His time earned silver in his first 100 m race at the national level, gaining him Commonwealth selection in three individual events.

Thorpe proceeded to the Olympic selection trials at Sydney Olympic Park in May 2000. He again broke his 400 m world record on the first night of racing, lowering it to 3 min 41.33 s to earn his first Olympic selection. The following day, he lowered his 200 m world record to 1 min 45.69 s in the semi-finals, before lowering it again to 1 min 45.51 s in the final. His attempt to secure a third individual berth failed after he finished fourth in the final of the 100 m and withdrew from the 1500 m.

Entering the Olympics, the Australian public expected Thorpe to deliver multiple world records and gold medals as a formality; Sydney's Daily Telegraph posted a front-page spread headlined Invincible.

With the 2001 Australian Championships held in Hobart in March, Thorpe added the 800 m freestyle to his repertoire, after FINA had added the event for the 2001 World Aquatics Championships.

Thorpe's success has been attributed to his work ethic, mental strength, powerful kick, ability to accelerate, and a physiology suited to swimming.

More information: Olympics

 When I started this I wanted to get back in the pool,
I wanted to race and I wanted to go to the Olympics.
I still want to do all of those things.

 

Ian Thorpe

'LIBRE DELS FEYTS', DISCOVERING A CATALAN CHRONICLE

Today, The Grandma has been relaxing at home. She has decide to reread one of the greatest treasures of Medieval Literature, the Llibre dels fets, the autobiographical chronicle of Jaume I (James I), count of Barcelona and king of Aragon.

She has decided to chose this masterpiece to remember the figure of Jaume I, who died on a day like today in 1276.

The Llibre dels fets, originally spelled Libre dels feyts, literally in English Book of Deeds, is the autobiographical chronicle of the reign of James I of Aragon (1213–1276).

It is written in Old Catalan in the first person and is the first chronologically of the four works classified as The Four Great Catalan Chronicles, all belonging to the early medieval Crown of Aragon, and its first royal dynasty, the House of Barcelona.

James I inherited as a child the titles of King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier, but also became by conquest King of Majorca and King of Valencia. James emphasizes in his chronicles his conquest of Majorca (1229) and of Valencia (1238).

James I of Aragon dedicates a couple of chapters to his mother Maria of Montpellier and his father Peter II of Aragon, called Peter the Catholic, who had been given the title of Rex Catholicissimus by the Pope after the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in which he helped Alfonso VIII of Castile fight against the Moors, one year before his death.

Peter II of Aragon died defending his vassal lords of Occitania, who were accused of allowing the Cathar heresy to proliferate in their counties. He was killed in the Battle of Muret, fighting against the Crusader troops commanded by Simon de Montfort. Though the text of the Llibre dels fets was dictated and edited by James I, the actual writing was done by scribes, not James himself; it is written is colloquial language, representing the native tongue as spoken, and its style is direct.

Download Libre dels Feyts/Llibre dels fets

Islands held by the Muslim Almohads, and his consequent founding of the Kingdom of Majorca, probably inspired him to start the dictation of his chronicles, he was having had an active part in the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula, in the context of Europe's medieval Christian Crusades. The Llibre dels fets narrative ends with James' death in 1276. Though the original is lost, many ancient copies of the codex have survived.

The oldest extant manuscript written in the original Catalan language, a copy dating to 1343, was commissioned by the abbot of the Poblet Monastery. 

An older manuscript dating to 1313, the Cronice Illustrissimi Regis Aragonum, was the version translated into Latin from the Catalan original Llibre dels Feyts del Rei en Jacme.

The Latin translation is signed by the Dominican friar Pere Marsili, who was ordered by James II of Aragon (James I's grandson) to honour his grandfather's memory by promulgating his words in the internationally used Latin language.

As the title itself indicates, more than a bare chronicle, the Llibre dels fets is in fact a Book of Deeds. Studies conducted in the 1980s concluded that this medieval manuscript is of an undefined literary style, since it was dictated entirely orally.

James I of Aragon, a cultivated man, dictated the entire book to royal scribes, who at that point in history commonly performed the labour of actually writing the king's words with pen on paper. Its style is informal and colloquial.

The principal characteristics of James' style are:

-Religious Feeling

-The love of the King for his realms

-Direct participation in the events described

-Military and heroic spirit

-Popular and improvised language

In the Llibre del Fets, James I of Aragon describes his life and his most important actions, such as the conquest of the Muslim-held Valencia and Majorca. 

The narrative begins with his birth in 1203 and ends with his death in 1276. The prologue and epilogue are written in a different style, more erudite and perfectionist than the rest of the text, and presumably written after his death.

In the Latin translation of 1313 by Pere Marsili, the friar informs his readers that he has translated chapters from the manuscripts then kept in the royal archives, indicating that the texts of the chronicles already existed and that they were written in the vulgar language, i.e., not in Latin, but in Catalan.

The oldest preserved copy of the manuscript in the Catalan language is the copy ordered in 1343, more than 60 years after James' death, by the Abbot of the Poblet Monastery.

The text of the Catalan manuscript is nearly identical to that of the Latin translation, but the Catalan version cannot be a copy of the Latin version, as the Catalan one is written in the first person, mainly using the majestic plural we, and only a few times the singular I, while the Latin version is written in the third person, using the first person in only a few quotes. This fact makes it improbable that the Catalan manuscript comes from the Latin version.

The internal structure of both versions seems to indicate two moments in time: the first part may have been dictated around 1240, shortly after James' conquest of Valencia. The facts before 1228 are explained in a brief, imprecise way even with significant errors, while from then on, the narrative shows greater detail and precision.

The supposed second part might have been dictated around 1274, and has a similar structure; the facts from 1242-1265 are condensed in a few pages, while the later years are again explicated in great detail. The prologue and the section that describes his illness and death were probably written or dictated by someone in James' trust. The Catalan copy of 1343 and the Latin translation of 1313 have left posterity the same content.

A didactic and justifying intention is largely reflected throughout the chronicle as a religious impulse, indicating that James I believed the execution of the work was guided by divine providence. The king, who normally desired to appear as an epic hero, not only recounts military and political history in the narrative, but also frequently mentions small details of his daily life, as well as some of his most intimate thoughts.

A popular and vivid language full of proverbs and colloquial expressions is used in the chronicles, which also quote foreign personages speaking other languages such as Aragonese, Galician-Portuguese (used by the Crown of Castile), Arabic or Old French.

Five codices of the text from the 14th century and two from the 15th are preserved, all based on a translation of the original Catalan text into Latin by the Dominican friar Pere Marsili at the order of King James' grandson, his namesake James II of Aragon.

The official delivery of the Cronice Illustrissimi Regis Aragonum domini Jacobi victorissimi principis was made on 2 June 1314 at the Church of the Friars Preachers, església dels frares predicadors, of Valencia.

More information: History Extra

Six official copies of the Latin translation by Pere Marsili exist. Four dating from the 14th century, conserved respectively in the National Library of Catalonia, the Archives of the Kingdom of Majorca, the Archives of the Cathedral of Palma de Majorca and the University of Barcelona's Library. A copy from the 17th century is kept at the Archives of the Crown of Aragon and another from the 19th in the Real Academia de la Historia of Spain.

Dated to 1343, the oldest surviving codex in the original Catalan language is the copy ordered by Ponç de Copons, the abbot of the Poblet Monastery.

This copy from the Poblet Monastery was made from an original manuscript owned by the Royal Chancellery. On 11 November 1343, King Peter IV of Aragon sent a letter to the abbot of the Poblet Monastery demanding the return of the original codex.

In 1585 King Philip II of Spain visited the Poblet Monastery and ordered a copy of the chronicle for the Royal Library of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Madrid.

The second Catalan codex manuscript source, dating to 1380, comes directly from the Royal Chancellery of King Peter IV of Aragon, and must be a direct copy of the original, as the king himself commanded Johan de Barbastro to make it.

A relevant fact about this copy is that Johan de Barbastro used an official codex from the Royal Chancellerie, now disappeared. King Pere IV the Ceremonious ordered three copies: one for Majorca, one for Barcelona and another for Valencia. Only the Majorcan copy has survived, and is now preserved in the National Library of Catalonia.

This first printed edition was ordered and paid for by the Jury of the city of Valencia in 1557. Made in a period of historical inquiries, once the print was finished, a copy was sent to Madrid to King Philip II of Spain, known by the Catalans as Philip II of Castile, from the House of Habsburg, who had also been very interested in the manuscript codex kept in the Poblet Monastery.

Other manuscripts have survived, all copies of the one made for the Poblet Monastery in 1343. There is one relevant codex between them conserved in the library of the University of Barcelona made by student Jaume Ferrera by order of his master, Prior Jaume Ramon Vila, who added a prologue, which is its singular feature.

The Prior explains the reason he ordered the present copy of the Llibre dels fets, was to deny the forgery issues that Castilian historians were throwing at Catalans. He indicates as well that the illustrations are faithful copies of the manuscript dated 1343 from the Poblet Monastery.

The other relevant feature of this codex is the second original illustration that did not survive from the Poblet manuscript. In this picture the Mayor of the Palace, Hugh de Forcalquier, and Blasco de Alagón are kneeling before James I.

More information: Royal Monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet

 Aquest es lo començament del prolech sobre el libre que feu el rey en Jacme per la gracia de Deu rey de Arago e de Mallorches e de Valencia,
comte de Barchinona e d'Urgell e senyor de Muntpesler
de tots los fets e de les gracies que Nostre Senyor li féu en la sua vida.

 

This is the beginning of the prologue about the book that King James made, by Holy Grace, King of Aragon, of Majorca and Valentia,
Count of Barcelona and Count of Urgell, and Lord of Montpellier,
of all his deeds and gifts, our Lord gave to him in his lifetime.

 

Libre dels Feyts

'EL CASTELL DE QUERALT', REBORN FROM THE FLAMES

Today, The Grandma has followed with interest the latest news about the fire that is affecting the counties of Anoia and Conca de Barberà and that is destroying ancient places and monuments and affecting flora and fauna.

A fire is always desolate, but it also teaches us many things, such as the paradox of the fragility of the forest in the face of recklessness or human economic interests and the strength of this forest itself when it comes to following its natural cycle and being reborn between the flames.

History is curious, and these days has shown us how there are places that are reluctant to disappear. Wars, economic interests, fires... many are the enemies of heritage, although stronger is the resilience of it that remains alive and standing, unaltered, reminding us every day who we are and where we come from, and marking the path to choose where we want to go and how we want to get there.

The Castle of Queralt dates from the 11th century and its history is our history, because its walls and its surroundings tell us our past, give meaning to our present and guide us towards a future that we desire splendid and in harmony with nature and cultural heritage. 

The Grandma and all her friends want to send a huge hug to all the inhabitants of Bellprat, Santa Maria de Miralles and Santa Coloma de Queralt who have been affected by this ecological tragedy, while recognizing, once again, the professionals who risk their lives to take care of our land: farmers, firefighters, rural agents, health workers and volunteers, who have worked tirelessly to prevent this tragedy from being even greater.

More information: Anoia Turisme

Bellprat, surrounded by forests and fields, is a small town in the region of Anoia, with human presence since ancient times, according to remains of the Bronze Age with Iberian settlements.

Nearby, the Castle of Queralt, Castell de Queralt in Catalan, dominates the whole area and is from where you can enjoy a magnificent view over the counties of Anoia, Segarra and Conca de Barberà.

The Castle of Queralt was, in the 10th century, an advanced bastion of the county of Barcelona, documented since 960. Its existence dates back to the previous century.

In 976, Count Borrell sold it to Guitart, Viscount of Barcelona, obtained, by conquest of his grandfather Guifré and by will of his father Sunyer, for the price of 200 pesos of silver. Under the influence of the castle, the town of Bellprat was born.

The Romanesque church of Sant Jaume de Queralt, located at the foot of the castle, served as a parish until in 1425 it was taken over by the church of Sant Salvador in Bellprat.

The small town, at an altitude of 652 m, grows around this church. With a population dedicated almost exclusively to agricultural and livestock activities, in Bellprat wheat, pulses and grapes were harvested and there were also lignite and bauxite farms. The Bellprat of 1685 had 10 grouped houses and 8 peasants.

Today, it is a quiet village where the work of the countryside, livestock, an incipient rural tourism and the families who come here fleeing the noisy cities to enjoy the silence and nature in their free time.

Bellprat has managed to beat the passage of time. The old buildings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have been reformed and preserved.

The Castle of Queralt is a building in Bellprat (Anoia) declared a cultural asset of national interest.

Nearby is the Church of Sant Jaume de Queralt, which is part of the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia.

It is cliffed on a rocky ridge at the western end of the Queralt mountain range, on the south-western side of the Anoia region, near the dividing line with the Conca de Barberà, the Alt Camp and the Alt Penedès. In the 10th century and due to its strategic location, the castle represents the end of the Marca.

Indirectly, the existence of this fortress can be traced back to the government of Count Guifré, between the years 880-897, when this count organized the repopulation of the county of Osona, of which the Castle of Queralt was at that time the most western. In 976 Count Borrell II and his wife Ledgarda sold to Guitard, Viscount of Barcelona, ​​the Castle of Queralt, located on the edge of the Marca against Spain.

The Barcelona viscount's family leaves the castle in favour of Trasoar from the family of the viscounts of Osona, whose children were awarded the possession of the castle in its entirety. At the beginning of the 11th century, the property was discussed between two lords, Sal·la, bishop of Urgell and Sendred de Gurb.

In 1002, the counts of Barcelona Ramon Borrell and Ermessenda of Carcassonne summoned a trial, and it is assumed that the sentence, which is not known, was in favour of Bishop Sal·la. However, the place is linked to the Gurb-Queralts, who were the only lords, we do not know if by purchase or usurpation, a method often used at the time.

More information: Fem Turisme

During the period of government of Bernat Sendred de Gurb, there was a major repopulation of the western lands of the castle, creating new settlements and the castles of Montargull, Rauric and Figuerola, a task that continued his son Guillem Bernat de Queralt, who died in 1084 and first to use the locative of Queralt as a surname.

Due to several deaths without descendants the property was divided in two branches of the family called Queralt and that owned different class from dominion; for example, on the eminent domain (the right of property superior to the useful dominion of the lords), and the other the possession in feud or the castlania. At the end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, the main branch disappeared, and the secondary branch settled in Queralt.

In 1212, Arnau of Timor bought from Berenguer III of Gurb Queralt the castle in free and his son was named Queralt and reunited the barony of Santa Coloma.

Around 1365 he belonged to Dalmau de Queralt, lord, also of the place of Santa Coloma. Notable lords of Queralt were Pere IV de Queralt, who died in 1408, and above all Pere VI de Queralt, a soldier, diplomat, man of letters, who was in the service of kings Pere el del Punyalet, Joan I and Martí l'Humà.

In 1463 a successor of the lineage, Guerau I, a supporter of the Catalan cause of the Generalitat, was dispossessed by his son Dalmau II, a supporter of John II. Peter VIII, in 1599, received the title of Count of Santa Coloma from Philip III of Castile. The heir, Dalmau III of Queralt, was viceroy of Catalonia at the outbreak of the War of the Reapers (Guerra dels Segadors) and was killed on the day of the Corpus of Blood (June 7, 1640). His son, distinguished by Philip IV, will be elevated to Grande de España in 1647.

The Count of Santa Coloma sold the castle in 1842 to the merchant Josep Safont. The last time it was used as a defence was in the Carlist War.

More information: Ajuntament de Bellprat

 A people's relationship to their heritage is the same
as the relationship of a child to its mother.

John Henrik Clarke

SVETLANA SAVITSKAYA, FIRST WOMAN TO SPACEWALK

After talking with Joseph de Ca'th Lon by Meet, The Grandma has remembered how many stories they have shared about Science, Anthropology, Archaeology, History or Astronomy.

The Grandma likes listening to Joseph's stories, and she misses him a lot when they spend time without news of each other.

Today, she has remembered another great story explained by Joseph, the life and works of Svetlana Savitskaya, the Russian cosmonaut who became the first woman to perform a spacewalk, on a day like today in 1984.

Svetlana Yevgenyevna Savitskaya, in Russian Светла́на Евге́ньевна Сави́цкая; born 8 August 1948) is a Russian former aviator and Soviet cosmonaut who flew aboard Soyuz T-7 in 1982, becoming the second woman in space.

On her 1984 Soyuz T-12 mission, she became the first woman to fly to space twice, and the first woman to perform a spacewalk.

She set several FAI world records as a pilot.

More information: Russian Space News

Svetlana Savitskaya was born in a privileged family. Her father, Yevgeny Savitsky, was a highly decorated fighter pilot during the Second World War, which later brought him to the position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Air Defence. Her mother was a Moscow Communist party leader.

Without the knowledge of her parents, Savitskaya began parachuting at the age of 16. Her father realized her unknown extracurricular activity upon the discovery of a parachute knife in his daughter’s school bag.

After his discovery, he further promoted this tendency. On her seventeenth birthday, she already had 450 parachute jumps. Over the next year, she led record stratosphere jumps from 13,800 m and 14,250 m. Over the course of her flying experience, Savitskaya achieved three world record jumps from the stratosphere and 15 world record jumps from jet planes.

After graduating in 1966, she enrolled in the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI), where she also took flight lessons.

In 1971, she was licensed as a flight instructor. After graduating from the MAI in 1972, she trained as a test pilot at the Fedotov Test Pilot School, graduating in 1976.

In May 1978 she went to work for the aircraft manufacturer Yakovlev, as a test pilot. In her flight experience, she became the first woman to reach 2,683 km/h in a MiG-25 aircraft.

An experienced and highly educated female in the Soviet Space Program, Savitskaya was reportedly an extremely serious, unbending, and steely woman. While she and Tereshkova were both chosen for missions into space due to Soviet propaganda purposes, Savitskaya was much more trained and experienced in aeronautics whereas Tereshkova was chosen as a political stunt.

Between 1969 and 1977 she was a member of the Soviet national team for aerobatics. At the FAI World Aerobatic Championships in July 1970 at Hullavington, she flew a Yak-18 and won the world championship together with an all-female team. At this particular Championship in the United Kingdom, a journalist for the British Press nicknamed Savitskaya Miss Sensation.

At the 1972 World Championships in Salon-de-Provence she placed third; in 1976 in Kiev with a Yak-50, fifth.

In 1979, Savitskaya participated in the selection process for the second group of female cosmonauts.

On June 30, 1980, she was officially admitted to the cosmonaut group. Of the nine women selected, Savitskaya was the only test pilot. The groups’ training was announced during French Air force officer and astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien's space mission. She passed her exams on February 24, 1982.

In December 1981, Savitskaya prepared for her first space flight, a short-term flight to the space station Salyut 7. She held the position of research cosmonaut on this mission. The mission of this second visiting expedition of the Salyut 7 was to prove the Soviet superiority to America by flying another woman into space and to replace the Soyuz T-5 spacecraft the crew would use for their return with a new vehicle.

 More information: Russia Beyond

The commander of this mission was Leonid Popov, with his third flight; it was flight engineer Alexander Serebrov's first flight.

The launch of Soyuz T-7 took place on August 19, 1982. This made Savitskaya the second woman in space, 19 years after Valentina Tereshkova.

In December 1983 she was assigned to her second flight, including an extravehicular activity, or EVA, three weeks after American astronaut Kathy Sullivan's flight and EVA assignment were made public. The timing of her mission would become one of her last triumphs to further the Soviet propaganda agenda in performing the first woman's space walk before the Americans.

Savitskaya was chosen above other female cosmonauts due to the extensive flight experience and physical ability to perform the necessary operations in a heavy, bulky space suit for multiple hours. Savitskaya participated in this mission under the title of flight engineer.

Again, it was to be a short-term mission to Salyut 7, this time bringing tools to the station so that the third resident crew, the Salyut 7 EO-3, could repair a fuel line.

 More information: TASS-Russian News Agency

On July 17, 1984 Savitskaya launched aboard Soyuz T-12, together with Commander Vladimir Dzhanibekov and research cosmonaut Igor Volk. On July 25, 1984, Savitskaya became the first woman to spacewalk, conducting EVA outside the Salyut 7 space station for 3 hours and 35 minutes, during which she cut and welded metals in space along with her colleague Vladimir Dzhanibekov.

A committed communist, Savitskaya was elected as a people's deputy of the USSR from 1989 and a people's deputy of Russia in 1990, a position she held until 1992. She did not welcome the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, noting that everything her parents had worked hard to build was destroyed almost overnight, and she was glad they did not live to see it.

Savitskaya retired in 1993 from the Russian Air Force with the rank of Major. In 1994/95 she worked as an Assistant Professor in Economics and Investment at the Moscow State Aviation Institute.

In 1996, she was elected a deputy of the State Duma representing the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, and has been re-elected four times since then. She presently serves as Deputy Chair of the Committee on Defence, and is also a member of the Coordination council presidium of the National Patriotic Union.

More information: National Space Centre

One realizes that this planet is their home.
One may even land on water, somewhere in the world Ocean,
still, the planet is their home.
One has a natural psychological wish to return to earth, to their home.

Svetlana Savitskaya