Italy Information Essay

Italy Information Essay Italy Information Essay Historical Italian Figures Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) Youngest ever Prime Minister of Italy, in 1922 transformed the office into a dictatorship. Created Fascist Party Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) Folk hero, military leader, political leader. Adopted the â€Å"Red Shirts† and captured Sicily and Naples and allowed them to join Kingdom of Italy. Michelangelo (1475-1564) Architect, painter, sculptor and poet. Most famous Italian artist; â€Å"Sistine Chapel† Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) Mathematician, artist, inventor and writer. â€Å"The Last Supper†, â€Å"Mona Lisa†. Marco Polo (1254-1324) Explorer and journalist. Wrote â€Å"the Travels of Marco Polo† Galileo (1564-1642) Mathematician and astronomer. Laid foundation for modern science, physics and astronomy. St. Francis of Assisi ( 1181-1226) Saint. Abandoned life of luxury and devoted life to Christianity. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) Explorer whom discovered â€Å"New World of the Americas† in 1492 Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) nurse known as â€Å"Lady with the Lamp†, spending nights caring for wounded soldiers and reducing death count by 2/3rds. Boticelli (1444-1510) early renaissance painter â€Å"Birth of Venus† Biographical Profile Julius Caesar Birthdate: 100 BCE Death: 44 BCE Place of Birth and Death: Rome, Italy Full Name: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus Children: Son Caesarion with Cleopatra Important events: Fought in several wars, became involved in Roman politics Negotiator between Crassus and Pompey Made â€Å"Dictator for Life†, â€Å"Father of Country† Relieved debt and reformed Senate Reformed Roman Calendar Reorganized local government His assassination led by Longinus and Brutus on the Ides of March First Roman figure to be deified, given title â€Å"The Divine Julius† 2 years after death Historical Event Dictatorship of Mussolini Benito Mussolini was born on July 29, 1883. The son of a blacksmith, he moved to Switzerland where he became involved in Socialist politics. He moved back to Italy in 1904 working as a journalist and was drafted into the Italian army in 1915. In 1919 he formed the Fascist Party. He organized unemployed war veterans into armed â€Å"Black Shirts†. Mussolini gradually dismantled all institutions of government and in 1925 made himself dictator. He eventually was captured and killed. Italian History The history of Italy can be divided into 7 distinct eras. Pre-History – thousands of rock drawings were discovered in the Alpine regions of Lombardy date around 8000 BC. There were also settlements throughout the Cooper Age, Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Roman Empire ( 5th Century BC to 5th Century AD) – Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus in Etruscan, Italy in 735 BC. Over the next several centuries, Rome expanded its territories into the well-known â€Å"Roman Empire†. The Romans named the Italian peninsular â€Å"Italia†. Italia flourished until the Roman Empire ended with the death of Augustus Caesar. Middle Ages (6th to 14th Century) - Began with multiple invasions including Ostrogoths conquering the Italian Peninsula, the Gothic War and the Lombards establishing a kingdom in North Italy and 3 regions in the South. Popes began building independent states and when the French defeated Lombards, the Papal States were created. The Renaissance (14th to 16th Century) – At this point in history there was a lot of disparity. The north was prosperous and the central and south were struggling. Naples, Sicily and Sardinia were controlled by foreign powers. A cultural movement began in Tuscany. The Medici family, a major contributor of the arts, introduced artistic greats, Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Botticelli. Italian popes rebuilt the city and Rome flourished. Tuscan dialect became the official language. Foreign Rule (1559-1814) – A dark period in Italian history. France invaded Northern Italy, Spain and Germany attacked Rome.

Facts and Figures About Pikaia

Facts and Figures About Pikaia During the Cambrian period, over 500 million years ago, an evolutionary explosion took place, but most of the new life forms were strange-looking invertebrates  (mostly weirdly legged and antennaed crustaceans like Anomalocaris and Wiwaxia)  rather than creatures with spinal cords. One of the crucial exceptions was the slender, lancelet-like Pikaia, visually the least impressive of the three early fishlike creatures that have been found preserved from this span in the geologic record (the other two are the equally important Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia, discovered in eastern Asia). Not Quite a Fish Its stretching things a bit to describe Pikaia as a prehistoric fish; rather, this inoffensive, two-inch-long, translucent creature may have been the first true chordate: an animal with a notochord nerve running down the length of its back, rather than a protective backbone, which was a later evolutionary development. But Pikaia did possess the basic body plan that stamped itself on the next 500 million years of vertebrate evolution: a head distinct from its tail, bilateral symmetry (i.e., the left side of its body matched up with the right side), and two forward-facing eyes, among other features. Chordate Versus Invertebrate However, not everyone agrees that Pikaia was a chordate rather than an invertebrate; theres evidence that this creature had two tentacles jutting out from its head, and some of its other characteristics (such as tiny feet that may have been gill appendages) fit awkwardly in the vertebrate family tree. However you interpret these anatomical features, though, its still likely that Pikaia lay very near the root of vertebrate evolution; if it wasnt the great-great (multiply by a trillion) grandmother of modern humans, it was certainly related somehow, albeit distantly. You may be surprised to learn that some fish alive today can be considered every bit as primitive as Pikaia, an object lesson in how evolution is not a strictly linear process. For example, the tiny, narrow lancelet Branchiostoma is technically a chordate, rather than a vertebrate, and clearly hasnt advanced very far from its Cambrian predecessors. The explanation for this is that, over the billions of years that life has existed on earth, only a tiny percentage of any given species population has actually been given the opportunity to evolve; thats the reason the world is still chock-full of bacteria, fish, and small, furry mammals.