text: New and large (>15") TFT displays often use LVDS signaling that transmits the same contents as the parallel interface (Hsync, Vsync, RGB) but will put control and RGB bits into a number of serial transmission lines synchronized to a clock whose rate is equal to the pixel rate. LVDS transmits seven bits per clock per data line, with six bits being data and one bit used to signal if the other six bits need to be inverted in order to maintain DC balance. Low-cost TFT displays often have three data lines and therefore only directly support 18 bits per pixel. Upscale displays have four or five data lines to support 24 bits per pixel (truecolor) or 30 bits per pixel respectively. Panel manufacturers are slowly replacing LVDS with Internal DisplayPort and Embedded DisplayPort, which allow sixfold reduction of the number of differential pairs.


title: Thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display

text: Backlight intensity is usually controlled by varying a few volts DC, or generating a PWM signal, or adjusting a potentiometer or simply fixed. This in turn controls a high-voltage () DC-AC inverter or a matrix of LEDs. The method to control the intensity of LED is to pulse them with PWM which can be source of harmonic flicker.


text: The bare display panel will only accept a digital video signal at the resolution determined by the panel pixel matrix designed at manufacture. Some screen panels will ignore the LSB bits of the color information to present a consistent interface (8 bit -> 6 bit/color x3).


text: With analogue signals like VGA, the display controller also needs to perform a high speed analog to digital conversion. With digital input signals like DVI or HDMI some simple reordering of the bits is needed before feeding it to the rescaler if the input resolution doesn't match the display panel resolution.


text: Liquid crystals are constantly subjected to toxicity and eco-toxicity testing for any hazard potential. The result is that:


text: The statements are applicable to Merck KGaA as well as its competitors JNC Corporation (formerly Chisso Corporation) and DIC (formerly Dainippon Ink & Chemicals). All three manufacturers have agreed not to introduce any acutely toxic or mutagenic liquid crystals to the market. They cover more than 90 percent of the global liquid crystal market. The remaining market share of liquid crystals, produced primarily in China, consists of older, patent-free substances from the three leading world producers and have already been tested for toxicity by them. As a result, they can also be considered non-toxic.


title: János Kádár

text: János József Kádár (; ; 26 May 1912 – 6 July 1989), born János József Czermanik, was a Hungarian communist leader and the General Secretary of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, a position he held for 32 years. Declining health led to his retirement in 1988, and he died in 1989 after being hospitalized for pneumonia.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár was born in Fiume in poverty to a single mother. After living in the countryside for some years, Kádár and his mother moved to Budapest. He joined the Party of Communists in Hungary's youth organization, KIMSZ, and went on to become a prominent figure in the pre-1939 Communist Party, eventually becoming First Secretary. As a leader, he would dissolve the party and reorganize it as the Peace Party, but the new party failed to win much popular support.


title: János Kádár

text: After World War II, with Soviet support, the Communist Party took power in Hungary. Kádár rose through the Party ranks, serving as Interior Minister from 1948 to 1950. In 1951 he was imprisoned by the government of Mátyás Rákosi but was released in 1954 by reformist Prime Minister Imre Nagy. On 25 October 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution, Kádár replaced Ernő Gerő as General Secretary of the Party, taking part in Nagy's revolutionary government. However, a week later he would break with Nagy over his decision to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. After the Soviet intervention, Kádár was selected to lead the country. He presided throughout repression, ordering the execution of many revolutionaries (including Nagy and his close associates) and the imprisonment of many others. He would gradually moderate, releasing the remaining prisoners of this period in 1963.


title: János Kádár

text: As leader of Hungary, Kádár attempted to liberalize the Hungarian economy with a greater focus on consumer goods, in what would become known as Goulash Communism. As a result of the relatively high standard of living, fewer human rights abuses, and more relaxed travel restrictions than those present in other Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary was generally considered the most livable country in the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War. Kádár was succeeded by Károly Grósz as General Secretary on 22 May 1988. Grósz would only serve a year in this post due to the fall of communism in Europe in 1989.


title: János Kádár

text: While at the head of Hungary, Kádár pushed for an improvement in standards of living. Kádár increased international trade with non-communist countries, in particular those of Western Europe. Kádár's policies differed from those of other communist leaders such as Nicolae Ceaușescu, Enver Hoxha, and Wojciech Jaruzelski, all of whom favored more orthodox interpretations of Marxism-Leninism. Kádár's reformist policies would in turn be viewed with distrust by the conservative leadership of Leonid Brezhnev in the Soviet Union. Kádár's legacy remains disputed, however, nostalgia for the Kádár era remains widespread in Hungary. A 2020 poll carried out by policy solutions found that 54 percent of people believe that most had a better life under Kádár, as opposed to 31 percent who disagree with that assertion.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár was born out of wedlock in Fiume (now: Rijeka, Croatia) on 26 May 1912. The infant was registered in the Italian version of his name: Giovanni Giuseppe Czermanik (In Hungarian: János József Czermanik) because he was born in the Italian established Santo Spirito Hospital. He got the Csermanek family name of his mother. He was an illegitimate son of the soldier János Krezinger and the servant maid Borbála Czermanik. Krezinger came from a smallholder family of Pusztaszemes, Somogy County. Kádár's father had Bavarian German origin. The mother, Borbála Csermanek was born in Ógyalla (today Hurbanovo, Slovakia) to a landless Slovak father and Hungarian mother. The parents of Borbála were too poor to provide schooling for the girl, thus the teenager girl had to work as maid in various villas. Soon Borbála got a job in the popular seaside resort town, Opatija. Krezinger met with Borbála during his military service in Opatija, the story however how they met is unknown. Abandoned, Borbála gave birth to János in the middle of the holiday season, no one wanted to employ a single mother with a child. His mother, Borbála went to look for Krezinger, but his family wanted nothing to do with them. She walked ten kilometres to the city of Kapoly where she persuaded the Bálint family to care for her child for a fee. Borbála found work in Budapest. To avoid the pronunciation problems of the Slovak-origin Czermanik name in Budapest, the family changed the orthography of their name to Csermanek.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár's foster father, Imre Bálint was in charge. But it was Bálint's brother, Sándor Bálint, Kádár would remember as his "true" foster father. While Imre served in the army during World War I, Sándor was left to take care of Kádár. Sándor was the only man Kádár had a good relationship with throughout his early childhood. Kádár started working at an early age and helped Sándor take care of his sick wife. Kádár years later recalled how his early experiences moved him towards Marxist-Leninism. He recalls how he was accused of setting a building on fire when the true culprit was the corrupt inspector's son. Suddenly in 1918, at the age of six, Borbála reclaimed him, moved him to Budapest and enrolled him in school. In school he got bullied for his bumpkin manners and his peasant talk.


title: János Kádár

text: Borbála worked hard to ensure that Kádár would get a good education. In the summer time, Kádár would find work in the countryside. He was seen as "alien" by his contemporaries, in the countryside they would call him a "city boy" while in the city they would call him a "country boy". Then in 1920, Borbála got pregnant again; the father soon left. Kádár helped take care of his half-brother, Jenő. At the Cukor Street Elementary School, Kádár proved to be a bright student. He skipped school often, and his mother tried beatings to make it stop. Classes were easy for him and he skipped school to play sports. He did read often however, but his mother was unimpressed by this and sarcastically asked him if he was a "gentleman of leisure". Kádár left school at the age of fourteen in 1926. Kádár started his apprenticeship as a car mechanic. After he was turned down as a car mechnic, he started work as an apprentice of Sándor Izsák, chief Hungarian representative of Torpedo Typewriter Company in the autumn of 1927. Typewriter mechanics had a high standing among the working class, there were only 160 of them in the country.


title: János Kádár

text: His first meeting with Marxist literature came in 1928 after he won a junior chess competition organised by the Barbers Trade Union. His prize was Friedrich Engels's "Anti-Dühring". The tournament organiser explained to Kádár that if he didn't understand it after his first reading, he should re-read it until he understood it. Kádár followed his advice, even if his friends were "unimpressed" by his reading. As he later noted later in his life, he did not understand the reading but it got him thinking: "Immutable laws and connections in the world which I had not suspected." While it may be true that as Kádár comments that the book had great influence over him, it was in 1929 when he was fired after he flared up at his employer after he talked condescendingly towards Kádár. When the Great Depression hit Hungary, Kádár was the first to be fired. What ensued was low paid jobs and poverty. He later became unemployed, and it was this experience which brought him into contact with the Communist Party of Hungary. According to Kádár he became a member of the party in 1931.


title: János Kádár

text: In September 1930, Kádár took part in an organised trade union strike. The strike was crushed by the authorities, and many of his fellow communists were arrested. In the aftermath of the failed strike, he supported the party by gathering signatures for candidates of the Socialist Workers' Bloc, an attempt by the Communist Party to create a front which would win over new supporters. This attempt was thwarted by the authorities, and new arrests ensued. In June 1931, he joined the communist youth organization, the Communist Young Workers' Association (KIMSZ). He joined the Sverdlov party cell, named after Soviet Yakov Sverdlov. His alias within the party became János Barna. During his early membership, the party was illegal, following the crushing of the 1919 Hungarian Soviet Republic. In December 1931, the authorities had been able to track him down, and Kádár was arrested on charges of spreading communism, and being a communist. He denied the charges, and because of lack of evidence, was released. He was however under constant police surveillance, and after some days, he was back in contact with KIMSZ. He was given new responsibilities, and by May 1933 he became a member of the KIMSZ Budapest committee. Because of his promotion in the communist hierarchy, he was given a new alias, Róna. The party suggested, but Kádár rejected, the offer of studying at the Lenin Institute in Moscow, claiming that he could not leave his family alone. His advance up the hierarchy came to an end when he was arrested on 21 June 1931 with other communist activists. Kádár cracked because of police brutality, when he later confronted his fellow arrested communists, he realized he had made a mistake and denied and retracted all his confessions. He was sentenced to two years in prison. Because of his confessions to the police, he was suspended from KIMSZ.


title: János Kádár

text: After being released for parole, he was politically in limbo. The hope of rejoining the Communist Party was shattered by the Comintern's decision to dissolve the national communist party in Hungary. The few remaining members of the party were told to infiltrate and work cooperatively with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary and trade unions. Kádár had in the meantime been able to persuade himself that it was because of changes within the party, and not his confessions, which had led to none of his associates making contact with him. He did, at the same time, have four more months of his prison sentence to serve before being released. In prison Kádár met with Mátyás Rákosi, a commissar of the Hungarian Soviet Republic and a renowned political prisoner. While Kádár later claimed that there grew a father-son like bond between them, the more plausible truth is that there grew a "somewhat adolescent cheekiness" between the two. In prison, Rákosi interrogated Kádár, and came to the conclusion that his confessions were due to his "shortcomings". After being released from prison for good, some former party activists made contact with him and instructed Kádár to infiltrate the Social Democratic Party with them. Within the party, Kádár and his associates made no secret of their Marxist views, frequently talking about the struggles of the working class and their gaze, which was directed towards the Soviet Union.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár still lived in poverty, and found it hard to blend in with the upper working class and the intelligentsia. Paradoxically, his main Communist contact in the Social Democratic Party was a sculptor named György Goldmann. Kádár evolved into an effective speaker on "bread and butter issues", but failed at having any success on more serious and complex topics. In 1940 he was recalled to the party's ranks. At the beginning of its re-founding, the party liked to use members without any police records, therefore Kádár was given more responsibilities within the infiltration of the Social Democratic Party. During May and June the police arrested and rounded up several party activists, including Goldman, but Kádár had managed to go into hiding. As early as May 1942, Kádár became a member of the newly formed Central Committee of the Communist Party, mostly due to the lack of personnel, seeing that the majority of them had been sent to prison. István Kovács, the acting party leader from December 1942, said; "he [Kádár] was extremely modest, a clever man but not then theoretically trained". Kovács brought Kádár into the party leadership and gave him a seat in the Secretariat of the Central Committee. By January 1943, had been able to get in touch with some seventy to eighty members, but this effort was torn apart by a new round of mass arrests, with Kovács being among them.


title: János Kádár

text: The new leadership after the last mass arrest consisted of Kádár as First Secretary, Gábor Péter, István Szirmai and Pál Tonhauser. During Kádár's first tenure as leader of the party, he faced many problems, the most important being that the communists were becoming increasingly irrelevant in a fast-changing situation, mostly because of the Hungarian government's continuing interference. In a meeting with Árpád Szakasits, a left-leaning Social Democrat, Kádár was asked to stop the party's illegal infiltration of his party. This meeting led to criticism being mounted against him during a Central Committee plenum meeting. In February 1936, Peter came up with an idea; his idea was to dissolve the party so that party members independently could spread communism, while a small secret leadership structure could keep itself together for some years. This, he said, would stop the continuing mass arrest of the communist party personnel and in turn strengthen the party for the future. While at the beginning Kádár was against such an idea, the idea grew on him and came to the conclusion that instead of dissolving the party, he would pretend to dissolve it and rename the party which would effectively throw the Hungarian authorities off their trail. The so-called "new party" was formed in August under the name, Peace Party. This decision was not supported by all, and the Moscow-based Hungarian Communists led by Mátyás Rákosi condemned the decision and domestic militants. Kádár disagreed with the criticism laid against him, claiming it was a "tactical retreat" which led to the renaming of the party, but with no changes to either the party's principles or structures. His attempted plan to fool the police failed, and the police continued arresting Hungarian Communists. Later in his life, this would be one of the few topics of his life Kádár would refuse to discuss.


title: János Kádár

text: After the German invasion of Hungary, the Peace Party, with other parties, established the Hungarian Front, the party's potential allies were still very wary of them. Therefore, the Popular Front was never able to win much support amongst the populace. In the aftermath of the invasion, the party under Kádár's leadership started partisan operations and created their own Military Committee. Kádár tried to cross the border into Yugoslavia in hope of making contact with the Yugoslav partisans and their leader, Josip Broz Tito. At the same time, Kádár probably hoped to establish better, and stronger, relations with the USSR; something they had been trying to do since 1942. Kádár was given a new identity as an army corporal trying to cross the Hungarian-Yugoslav border. This attempt failed, and he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. The authorities never figured out his real identity therefore members such as Rákosi thought he was a secret agent for the police. There is however no hard proof for these accusations, and incompetence remains the sole plausible reason. It was later proven, when SS officer Otto Winckelmann reported to Berlin that Kádár had been arrested, they had mistakenly confused Kádár for another communist.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár, while in prison, was able to send out messages to Péter, and other high-ranking party members, they were able to orchestrate a scheme to free him. In the meantime, the leader of Hungary Miklós Horthy was conspiring against the German occupiers. There were rumours that claim that Horthy tried to get in contact with Kádár, but did not know that he was in prison. Horthy was deposed by the German government and replaced by Arrow Cross Party leader Ferenc Szálasi. Szálasi's policies had an immediate effect on Kádár; he had emptied the prison Kádár lived in and sent them to Nazi concentration camps. Kádár was able to escape and made his way back to Budapest. Immediately after his return to Budapest, Kádár headed the communist party's military committee. The committee tried to persuade workers to help the Soviet forces, but was not able to muster much support from the populace, therefore its effect was marginal at best. After the Soviet victory in Budapest, he changed his name from Csermanek to Kádár, literally meaning "cooper" or "barrel-maker".


title: János Kádár

text: After the Soviet liberation of Hungary, the Soviet–Hungarian Communist leadership sent Zoltán Vas and the new Kremlin-approved Central Committee of the Communist Party of Hungary; Kádár became a member. Kádár rose, not because of ideology, or technical knowledge, but rather for his organisational skills. He helped organize the Party's headquarters and designed its membership card. The Soviet troops stationed in Hungary committed mass rapes and pillaged Budapest and the countryside. Kádár told the Interior Minister, "The Soviet command caused really big difficulties in our work, especially in the beginning, and they still do". Kádár was appointed deputy chief of police. He had sharp critics, such as Rákosi's party deputy Ernő Gerő who felt his decision to dissolve the party during the war was a rash decision. Other peers felt he had been over-promoted. Nevertheless, he moved up to the Politburo of the Communist Party of Hungary. In February 1945, Rákosi was elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of Hungary.


title: János Kádár

text: Rákosi's leadership consisted of Mihály Farkas the Minister of Defence. Kádár and Béla Kovács noted with puzzlement the leadership's total lack of interest in the domestic Communist's experience and outlook. As head of cadres, Kádár supervised membership appointments to the party. This position gave him contacts, some of whom would become very important to him in his later life. After failing to secure a majority in Parliament after the 1945 election, the Communist leadership started the divide and conquer strategy known as salami tactics. Kádár became a prominent figure during the period between the 1945 and the 1947 Hungarian parliamentary elections. Kádár had evolved a sense of rivalry with the Social Democratic Party of Hungary, claiming the party was "thrashing" them in government, and that they made it impossible for the Communists to negotiate policy with the Hungarian trade unions.


title: János Kádár

text: In 1946, Kádár campaigned for the communist party in workers districts and factories. These areas were heavily contested between the Communists and the Social Democrats. The Communists were able to persuade the Social Democrats to hold elections in factories where the communists held the majority. The clear majority results gained by the Communists during this election prompted the Social Democrats to postpone the rest of the election. At the 3rd Congress of the Communist Party of Hungary, Kádár was appointed one of Rákosi's two deputies. He was appointed deputy because of social and ethnic background, the majority of the leadership were of Jewish origins and were intellectuals, Kádár was however a "Hungarian" worker. In the aftermath of his appointment, he enrolled himself in Russian lessons and grew fond of reading, his favorite being "The Good Soldier Švejk".


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár, as in 1946, was a Communist Party campaigner, and was described by historian Robert Gough as "a great success". The Communist Party won a majority in parliament in 1947, and because of the escalation of the Cold War, the Soviet leadership ordered them to create a one-party state. Kádár played an active role in the creation of the Hungarian Working People's Party; created by a merger of the Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party. At the unification congress Kádár made a speech which made little impact on the Communist movement in Hungary. In May 1948 Kádár visited the Soviet Union, and for the first and last time in his life he saw Joseph Stalin with his own eyes. During his visit to the USSR, Kádár's brother, Jenő died. On 5 August 1948 László Rajk was appointed to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Kádár took his place as Minister of the Interior. As Interior Minister, he did not have real power as the most important organizations of internal state security operated under the direct control of Rákosi and his closest associates. In 1949, Borbála died, and Kádár married Mária Tamáska.


title: János Kádár

text: Just as Stalin had launched a Great Purge against those with knowledge of the pre-Stalin party, Rákosi launched a purge against those who had worked in Hungary, and not in the Soviet Union, during World War II and before. In retrospect, it is clear that Kádár was appointed Minister of the Interior with the deliberate aim to involve him in the "show trial" of Laszlo Rajk, although the investigations and proceedings were handled by the State Security Agency with the active participation of the Soviet Secret Police. Rákosi later boasted of "spending many a sleepless night" in unraveling the threads of the "anti-party conspiracy" led by Rajk and his "gang." During the public trial, Rákosi personally gave instructions to the judge over the phone. Rákosi would later attempt to blame Kádár for Rajk's death. Later in his life Rákosi said that Rajk died screaming "Long live Stalin! Long live Rákosi!" while Tibor Szönyi died without saying a word and András Szalai crying. Farkas and Gábor Péter, upon the death of Rajk and the others, said "provocateurs to their last breaths". This event didn't assure Kádár; making him doubt if any of the accusation leveled against his coworkers were true. It is believed that after Rajk's death Kádár was seen vomiting; these rumours have not been confirmed by any sources from that time. Rákosi contacted him the following the day, asking him why he was in such a bad mood, and continued, saying; "Did the executions affect you that much?". According to certain rumours, which are probably not reliable, Kádár visited Rákosi to tell him about his reaction to the execution. Later, during a party presentation to a college, Kádár emphasized party austerity. This presentation might reflect on Kádár's reaction to Rajk's execution and his revelation that he might become the next victim of government repression. When holding his presentation, he was described by his audience as a "haggard", "distressed" and as a man under a lot of "strain".


title: János Kádár

text: Rákosi told Kádár, in late August 1950, that former Social Democratic party leader Árpád Szakasits had confessed to being a spy for the capitalistic countries. Szakasits' imprisonment would be the start of a long purge against former social democrats, trade union officials, and high-standing communist party members. The purge would last until 1953, the extent of the purge went so far that the ÁVH held files on around one million, literally one-tenth of Hungary's population at that time. The purges were enacted when Rákosi and his associates were in the middle of the country's collectivising agriculture and the rapid industrialisation efforts. Ernő Gerő's ambition to make Hungary a land made out of "steel and iron" led to a decline in the national standards of living. At this point Rákosi had started distrusting Kádár, leading Kádár to resign as Ministry of the Interior citing health and stress reasons for his choice. Kádár believed the longer down the ladder he climbed there was a bigger chance of not being purged. In this he was wrong, and he along with new Minister of the Interior Sándor Zöld, were criticised for not doing a proper enough job to remove the anti-socialist movement within the country. Kádár would later refute most of the allegations the Rákosi leadership put against, but to no avail, and for every letter he wrote to refute an allegation another allegation was put against him. He eventually gave up and in one letter Kádár even admitted to his faults; claiming that he was still "politically backward" and "ideologically untrained" when he headed the prewar Communist Party as First Secretary. Kádár concluded that he had been fooled by the capitalists and therefore offered his resignation from active politics. Instead of resigning, and losing his seats in the Central Committee and the Politburo, his memberships in these organisations were renewed at the party congress. Believing that his position was secure and that Rákosi had given him another chance, Kádár thought nothing more of it. This proved to be wrong, and by the end of March 1951, Rákosi informed the Soviets that Kádár along with Zöld and Gyula Kállai were to be imprisoned.


title: János Kádár

text: On 18 April 1951, Zöld had killed his whole family and committed suicide after finding out that Rákosi and his associates had decided to purge him from the party. When the authorities found their bodies, they decided to quickly gather the remaining two before they did something rash too. Kádár, who did not know what had just taken place, was at home taking care of his wife Maria, who had been in and out of the hospital. The Hungarian leadership decided to call him, asking Kádár to meet them at the party headquarters, when leaving his home he was stopped by ÁVH officers and the ÁVH head Gábor Péter.


title: János Kádár

text: Only a year later, Kádár found himself the defendant in a show trial of his own—on false charges of having been a spy of Horthy's police. This time it was Kádár who was beaten by the security police and urged to "confess". During Kádár's interrogation, the ÁVH reportedly beat him, smeared him with mercury to prevent his skin pores from breathing, and had his questioner urinate into his pried-open mouth. However, at the 1954 rehearing of his trial, when asked if he had been maltreated, he answered "Physically no", a denial he repeated in later interviews towards the end of his life. It is thought by some that the stories of brutality were intended to portray him as a victim of Stalinist torture in order to counter his image at home and abroad as a Soviet stooge.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. His incarceration included three years of solitary confinement, conditions far worse than he suffered while imprisoned under the Horthy regime. He was released from prison in July 1954, after the death of Stalin and the appointment of Imre Nagy as Prime Minister in 1953.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár accepted the offer to act as party secretary in the heavily industrialized 13th district of Budapest. He rose to prominence quickly, building up a large following among workers who demanded increased freedom for trade unions.


title: János Kádár

text: Rákosi was forced to resign in 1956, replaced by Gerő. On 23 October 1956, students marched through Budapest intending to present a petition to the government. The procession swelled as several people poured onto the streets. Gerő replied with a harsh speech that angered the people, and police opened fire. It proved to be the start of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. As the revolution spread throughout the country, Nagy was called back as Prime Minister.


title: János Kádár

text: The Hungarian Working People's Party decided to dissolve itself and to reorganize itself as the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party. On 25 October 1956, Kádár was elected General Secretary. He was also a member of the Nagy Government as Minister of State.


title: János Kádár

text: Nagy began a process of liberalization, removing state controls over the press, releasing many political prisoners, and expressing wishes to withdraw Hungary from the Warsaw Pact. He formed a coalition government. Although the Soviet leaders issued a statement that they strove to establish a new relationship with Hungary on the basis of mutual respect and equality, in the first days of November, the Presidium of the Soviet Communist Party took a decision to crush the revolution by force.


title: János Kádár

text: On 1 November 1956, Kádár, together with Ferenc Münnich, left Hungary for Moscow with the support of the Soviet Embassy in Budapest. There the Soviet leaders tried to convince him that a "counter-revolution" was unfolding in Hungary that must be put to an end at any cost. He only agreed to change sides when the Soviet leaders informed him that the decision had already been taken to crush the revolution with the help of the Soviet troops stationed in Hungary. He was also told that unless he agreed to become prime minister in the new government, the Rákosi–Gerő leadership would be reinstalled. Although he was under duress, he did not, by his own admission, resist as much as he could have. In a speech given on 12 April 1989, he confessed to having played a role in Nagy's execution, calling it his "own personal tragedy." Writing in 1961, American journalist John Gunther said that "Kádár today looks like a man pursued by shadows, a walking corpse."


title: János Kádár

text: The Soviet tank divisions moved into Budapest with the purpose of crushing the revolution at dawn on 4 November 1956. The proclamation of the so-called Revolutionary Workers'-Peasants' Government of Hungary, headed by Kádár, was broadcast from Szolnok the same day.


title: János Kádár

text: The 15th point was withdrawn after pressure from the USSR that a 200,000 strong Soviet detachment be garrisoned in Hungary. This development allowed Kádár to divert huge defense funds to welfare.


title: János Kádár

text: Nagy, along with Georg Lukács, Géza Losonczy and László Rajk's widow, Júlia, fled to the Yugoslav Embassy. Kádár promised them safe return home at their request but failed to keep this promise as the Soviet party leaders decided that Imre Nagy and the other members of the government who had sought asylum at the Yugoslav Embassy should be deported to Romania. Later on, a trial was instituted to establish the responsibility of the Imre Nagy Government in the 1956 events. Although it was adjourned several times, the defendants were eventually convicted of treason and conspiracy to overthrow the "democratic state order". Imre Nagy, Pál Maléter and Miklós Gimes were sentenced to death and executed on 16 June 1958. Géza Losonczy and both died in prison under suspicious circumstances during the court proceedings.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár assumed power in a critical situation. The country was under Soviet military administration for several months. The fallen leaders of the Communist Party took refuge in the Soviet Union and were planning to regain power in Hungary. The Chinese, East German, and Czechoslovak leaders demanded severe reprisals against the perpetrators of the "counter-revolution". Despite the distrust surrounding the new leadership and the economic difficulties, Kádár was able to normalize the situation in a remarkably short time. This was due to the realization that, under the circumstances, it was impossible to break away from the Communist bloc. The Hungarian people realized that the promises of the West to help the Hungarian revolution were unfounded and that the logic of the Cold War determined the outcome. Hungary remained part of the Soviet sphere of influence with the tacit agreement of the West. Though influenced strongly by the Soviet Union, Kádár enacted a policy slightly contrary to that of Moscow, for example, allowing considerably large private plots for farmers of collective farms.


title: János Kádár

text: Starting in the early 1960s, he gradually lifted Rákosi's more draconian measures against free speech and movement, and also eased some restrictions on cultural activities. He even tolerated samizdat publications to a far greater extent than his counterparts. As Kádár once said, "what kind of regime is it that doesn't have even a tiny little opposition, just for show? But there's also the fact that they can't go beyond a certain limit, and if they try, they'll pay for it." Hungarians had much more freedom than their Eastern Bloc counterparts to go about their daily lives.


title: János Kádár

text: The result was a regime that was far more humane than other Communist regimes, especially so when compared to the first seven years of undisguised Communist rule in Hungary. However, it was not a liberal regime in any sense. The Communists maintained absolute control over the government and also encouraged citizens to join party organizations. The National Assembly, like its counterparts in other Communist countries, did little more than approve decisions already made by the MSZMP and its Politburo. Voters were presented with a single list from the Patriotic People's Front, which was dominated by the MSZMP. All prospective candidates had to accept the Front's program in order to stand; indeed, Kádár and his advisers used the Front to weed out candidates they deemed unacceptable. The secret police, while operating with somewhat more restraint than their counterparts in other Eastern Bloc countries, was nonetheless a feared tool of government control. The Hungarian media remained under censorship that was considered fairly onerous by Western standards, but far less stringent than was the case in other Communist countries.


title: János Kádár

text: As a result of the relatively high standard of living, and more relaxed restrictions on speech, movement, and culture that of other Eastern Bloc countries, Hungary was generally considered one of the better countries in which to live in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. The dramatic fall in living standards after the fall of Communism led to some nostalgia about the Kádár era. However, the relatively high living standards had their price in the form of a considerable amount of 58% of GDP or US$22 bn state debt left behind by the Kádár régime. As mentioned above, the regime's cultural and social policies were still somewhat authoritarian; their impact on contemporary Hungarian culture is still a matter of considerable debate.


title: János Kádár

text: While Kádár's regime remained strictly loyal to the Soviet Union in foreign policy, its intent was to establish a national consensus around its domestic policies. In notable contrast to Rákosi, who repeatedly declared "he who is not with us is against us" in his rally speeches, Kádár declared that "who is not against us is with us." Kádár was the first Eastern European leader to develop closer ties with the Social Democratic parties of Western Europe. He tried to mediate between the leaders of the Czechoslovak reform movement of 1968 and the Soviet leadership to avert the danger of military intervention. When, however, the decision was taken by the Soviet leaders to intervene in order to suppress the Prague Spring, Kádár decided to participate in the Warsaw Pact operation.


title: János Kádár

text: During Kádár's rule, international tourism increased dramatically, with many tourists (including Hungarians who emigrated 1956 or before) from Canada, the US, and Western Europe bringing much-needed money into Hungary. Hungary built strong relations with developing countries and many foreign students arrived. The "Holy Crown" (referred to in the media as the "Hungarian Crown", so as to prevent it carrying a political symbolism of the Horthy régime or an allusion to Christianity) and regalia of Hungarian kings was returned to Budapest by the United States in 1978.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár was known for his simple and modest lifestyle and avoided the self-indulgence persona of other Communist leaders. Although he was never personally corrupt, he sometimes overlooked corrupt dealings of other members of the elite to an extent. To strengthen his popularity, whispering propaganda depicted him as totally intolerant to corruption by his underlings. Playing chess was one of his favorite pastimes. However, he was an avid hunter (hunting for sport used to be an aristocratic hobby before 1945 in Hungary and this pattern continued during the Communist era when it became a cherished pastime and occasion for the new elite to informally socialize and to get drunk), and was a member of an exclusive hunting association made up by Party leaders and other dignitaries. He wasn't a heavy drinker though and demanded modesty when he was present. Also, foreign guests often visited the Hungarian forests too, from the Shah of Iran through Fidel Castro to the King of Nepal, and Leonid Brezhnev hunted with Kádár several times. The popularity of this "gentleman's sport" among Communist leaders was marked by political decisions made on hunting excursions.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize (1975–76). He was also awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 3 April 1964.


title: János Kádár

text: János Kádár held power in Hungary until the "apparat coup" in the spring of 1988, when he resigned under pressure as General Secretary in the face of mounting economic difficulties and his own ill health. At a party conference in Budapest on 22 May 1988, at which half a dozen of his Politburo associates were also removed, Kádár announced his resignation and was officially replaced as General Secretary by Prime Minister Károly Grósz, who strove to continue Kádár's policies in a modified form adapted to the new circumstances. Kádár was named instead to the ceremonial position of Party President. He did not wish to be re-elected to the Political Committee, the most important decision-making body of the party. In May 1989, as Grósz and his associates in turn were being sidelined by a faction of young "radical reformers" who set out to dismantle Communism altogether, Kádár, his health visibly failing, was officially removed from office completely.


title: János Kádár

text: On 12 April 1989 Kádár unexpectedly appeared and made a rambling, incoherent speech at the closed meeting of the Central Committee. By the "right of the last word", he wanted to confess about his negotiations in 1956 in Moscow (about which he never spoke publicly) and about the conviction and execution of Imre Nagy. But all the changes that occurred in Eastern Europe and Hungary between 1956 and 1989 were at the same time in his head. An interpretation of Kádár's thoughts was offered by , who gave a lecture about János Kádár.


title: János Kádár

text: According to Miklós Németh's testimony, 'in late May or early June' 1989, a few weeks before his death, Kádár asked a Roman Catholic priest to hear his confession, which some have theorised as a sign of a possible revelation and conversion to Christianity.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár died of cancer on 6 July 1989 aged 77, three months before the formal end of the regime he had largely created.


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár's grave at the Kerepesi Cemetery in Budapest was vandalized on 2 May 2007 as a number of his bones, including his skull, were dug up and stolen, along with his wife Mária Tamáska's urn. A message reading "murderers and traitors may not rest in holy ground 1956–2006" (taken from a song titled "Neveket akarok hallani" written by the rock band "Kárpátia") was written nearby. The two dates refer to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and the 2006 protests in Hungary, respectively. This act was received with widespread revulsion across the political and societal spectrum in Hungary. Police investigations focused on extremist right-wing groups which had been aspiring to "carry out an act that would create a big bang."


title: János Kádár

text: Kádár's legacy remains disputed in Hungary. Supporters of Kádár argue that the Kádár era was one of peace and stability with widespread job security and robust social protections for average people. Others argue that although Kádár increased the standard of living for Hungarians, and instituted broad liberalization, the country was still fundamentally a dictatorship and a Soviet satellite state.


title: János Kádár

text: Polls indicate that nostalgia for the Kádár era remains widespread in Hungary. According to a 2020 poll carried out by Policy Solutions in Hungary, 54 percent of Hungarians believe most people had a better life under Kádár, compared to 31 percent who say life for most people was worse under Kádár.


title: János Kádár

text: An interpretation of events in Kádár's political and personal life, beginning circa 1945, including an association with the trial, execution, reburial, atonement of László Rajk, and ending with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, are portrayed in Robert Ardrey's 1958 play, "Shadow of Heroes".


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is a Sanskrit phrase found in Hindu texts such as the Maha Upanishad, which means "The World Is One Family".


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: Vedic tradition mentions "Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam" meaning all living beings on the earth are a family.


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: The original Verse appears in Chapter 6 of Maha Upanishad VI.71-73., it is considered the most important moral value in the Indian society. This verse of Maha Upanishad is engraved in the entrance hall of the Parliament Of India.


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: Subsequent shlokas go on to say that those who have no attachments go on to find the Brahman (The One Supreme, Universal Spirit That Is The Origin And Support Of The Phenomenal Universe). The context of this verse is to describe as one of the attributes of an individual who has attained the highest level of spiritual progress, and one who is capable of performing his worldly duties without attachment to material possessions.


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: The text has been influential in the major Hindu literature that followed it. The popular Bhagavata Purana, the most translated of the Purana genre of literature in Hinduism, for example, calls the Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam adage of the Maha Upanishad, as the "Loftiest Vedantic Thought".


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: Dr N. Radhakrishnan, former director of the Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti, believes that the Gandhian vision of holistic development and respect for all forms of life; nonviolent conflict resolution embedded in the acceptance of nonviolence both as a creed and strategy; were an extension of the ancient Indian concept of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi used this phrase in a speech at World Culture Festival, organized by Art of Living, adding that "Indian culture is very rich and has inculcated in each one of us with great values, we are the people who have come from Aham Brahmasmi to Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, we are the people who have come from Upanishads to Upgraha.(Satellite)."


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: It was used in the logo of the 7th International Earth Science Olympiad, which was held in Mysore, India in 2013. It was designed to emphasize on the integration of the Earth’s subsystems in the school curriculum. It was designed by R. Shankar and Shwetha B. Shetty of Mangalore University.


title: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam

text: The theme and the logo for India’s G20 Presidency from December 1, 2022, till November 30, 2023 has a mention of “Vasudhaiva Kutumakam” or “One Earth-One Family-One Future”. The logo was selected after scrutiny of 2400 pan-India submissions invited through a logo design contest.


title: BMW M43

text: The BMW M43 is an SOHC four-cylinder petrol engine which was produced from 1991-2002. The M43 powered base-model cars, while higher performance models at the time were powered by the BMW M42 and BMW M44 DOHC engines. The M43 was produced at the Steyr engine plant.


title: BMW M43

text: Compared with its BMW M40 predecessor, the M43 features both a camshaft position sensor and a knock sensor as well as roller rockers and a timing chain (instead of the M40's finger rockers and timing belt). It also features a dual length intake manifold ("DISA"), to provide torque across a wider rev range.


title: BMW M43

text: The M43B16 produces and of torque. It uses the Bosch Motronic 1.7.x and Bosch BMS43 engine management system. There was also a natural gas-powered version of this car (also able to run on petrol) for the 1995 BMW 316g Compact.


title: BMW M43

text: The M43B18 has a displacement. It produces and and uses the Bosch Motronic 1.7.1 fuel injection system. There was also a less powerful natural gas-powered version of this car (also able to run on petrol) for the BMW 518g Touring (E34). This model was only available for two years.


title: BMW M43

text: The M43B19 (also known as the "M43TÜ") is the largest M43 engine, with a displacement of . It produces up to and , and uses BMW's BMS 46 engine management system. The versions do not have the DISA intake manifold and also have a smaller camshaft compared to the 118 PS versions. Note the M43B16, M43B18 and the M43B19 (118 PS version) all have the same camshaft.


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: The statue of Baphomet is a bronze sculpture commissioned by The Satanic Temple depicting Baphomet, a winged, goat-headed, humanoid and a symbol of the occult. First unveiled in Detroit in 2015, the statue stands tall and features a prominent pentagram as well as two smiling youths gazing up at the seated central figure. Petitions to display the piece on public grounds have resulted in arguments concerning the separation of church and state. Production of the statue, and its initial notoriety, is featured in the documentary "Hail Satan?" (2019).


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: The Satanic Temple began an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign in 2014 to create a satanic monument depicting Baphomet and two children, with the intention to display this monument at the Oklahoma State Capitol. The group's fundraising efforts aimed at erecting the statue in response to the Ten Commandments Monument installed by Oklahoma State Representative Mike Ritze in 2012. Artist Mark Porter created the sculpture in Florida using the drawing by Eliphas Levi as a basis for "Baphomet".


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: The piece was first seen publicly on 25 July 2015 at an event organized by the Detroit chapter of The Satanic Temple, amidst protests by religious organizations. The 700 attendees at the unveiling ceremony had to "sell their souls to Satan" in order to receive a ticket, a tactic that the Temple stated was done in order to "keep away some of the more radical superstitious people who would try to undermine the event."


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: "Time" noted that "the group does not 'promote a belief in a personal Satan.' By their logic, Satan is an abstraction, ... 'a literary figure, not a deity — he stands for rationality, for skepticism, for speaking truth to power, even at great personal cost.' "Time" also commented on the statue's unveiling, writing "Call it Libertarian Gothic, maybe — some darker permutation of Ayn Rand's crusade for free will. One witnesses in The Satanic Temple militia a certain knee-jerk reaction to encroachments upon personal liberties, especially when those encroachments come with a crucifix in hand. The Baphomet statue is the Satanic Temple’s defiant retort "du jour"."


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: Initially commissioned to be installed alongside the Ten Commandments outside the Oklahoma State Capitol, The Satanic Temple offered to donate "Baphomet" for display on the Capitol grounds. After litigation of "Prescott v. Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission" concluded with a State Supreme Court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument, the Satanic Temple withdrew their request to place "Baphomet" on Oklahoma public property.


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: The statue was displayed on a flatbed truck parked in front of the Arkansas State Capitol building for several hours on 16 August 2018 for an event organized in protest of the Ten Commandments Monument on the Arkansas Capitol grounds. After a formal request to install "Baphomet" was refused, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause, Satanic Temple members were granted legal standing to challenge the Ten Commandments monument.


title: Statue of Baphomet

text: The Satanic Temple sued Netflix in November 2018 over usage of a likeness of the statue in "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina". The case was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum and The Satanic Temple being given credit for the statue in future broadcasts.


title: Medieval technology

text: Medieval technology is the technology used in medieval Europe under Christian rule. After the Renaissance of the 12th century, medieval Europe saw a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth. The period saw major technological advances, including the adoption of gunpowder, the invention of vertical windmills, spectacles, mechanical clocks, and greatly improved water mills, building techniques (Gothic architecture, medieval castles), and agriculture in general (three-field crop rotation).


title: Medieval technology

text: The development of water mills from their ancient origins was impressive, and extended from agriculture to sawmills both for timber and stone. By the time of the "Domesday Book", most large villages had turnable mills, around 6,500 in England alone. Water-power was also widely used in mining for raising ore from shafts, crushing ore, and even powering bellows.


title: Medieval technology

text: Many European technical advancements from the 12th to 14th centuries were either built on long-established techniques in medieval Europe, originating from Roman and Byzantine antecedents, or adapted from cross-cultural exchanges through trading networks with the Islamic world, China, and India. Often, the revolutionary aspect lay not in the act of invention itself, but in its technological refinement and application to political and economic power. Though gunpowder along with other weapons had been started by Chinese, it was the Europeans who developed and perfected its military potential, precipitating European expansion and eventual imperialism in the Modern Era.


title: Medieval technology

text: Also significant in this respect were advances in maritime technology. Advances in shipbuilding included the multi-masted ships with lateen sails, the sternpost-mounted rudder and the skeleton-first hull construction. Along with new navigational techniques such as the dry compass, the Jacob's staff and the astrolabe, these allowed economic and military control of the seas adjacent to Europe and enabled the global navigational achievements of the dawning Age of Exploration.


title: Medieval technology

text: At the turn to the Renaissance, Gutenberg's invention of mechanical printing made possible a dissemination of knowledge to a wider population, that would not only lead to a gradually more egalitarian society, but one more able to dominate other cultures, drawing from a vast reserve of knowledge and experience. The technical drawings of late-medieval artist-engineers Guido da Vigevano and Villard de Honnecourt can be viewed as forerunners of later Renaissance artist-engineers such as Taccola or Leonardo da Vinci.


title: Medieval technology

text: The following is a list of some important medieval technologies. The approximate date or first mention of a technology in medieval Europe is given. Technologies were often a matter of cultural exchange and date and place of first inventions are not listed here (see main links for a more complete history of each).


title: Medieval technology

text: A type of heavy wheeled plough commonly found in Northern Europe. The device consisted of four major parts. The first part was a coulter at the bottom of the plough. This knife was used to vertically cut into the top sod to allow for the plowshare to work. The plowshare was the second pair of knives which cut the sod horizontally, detaching it from the ground below. The third part was the moldboard, which curled the sod outward. The fourth part of the device was the team of eight oxen guided by the farmer. This type of plough eliminated the need for cross-plowing by turning over the furrow instead of merely pushing it outward. This type of wheeled plough made seed placement more consistent throughout the farm as the blade could be locked in at a certain level relative to the wheels. A disadvantage to this type of plough was its poor maneuverability. Since this equipment was large and led by a small herd of oxen, turning the plough was difficult and time-consuming. This caused many farmers to turn away from traditional square fields and adopt a longer, more rectangular field to ensure maximum efficiency.


title: Medieval technology

text: While ploughs have been used since ancient times, during the medieval period plough technology improved rapidly. The medieval plough, constructed from wooden beams, could be yoked to either humans or a team of oxen and pulled through any type of terrain. This allowed for faster clearing of forest lands for agriculture in parts of Northern Europe where the soil contained rocks and dense tree roots. With more food being produced, more people were able to live in these areas.


title: Medieval technology

text: Once oxen started to be replaced by horses on farms and in fields, the yoke became obsolete due to its shape not working well with a horses' posture. The first design for a horse collar was a throat-and-girth-harness. These types of harnesses were unreliable though due to them not being sufficiently set in place. The loose straps were prone to slipping and shifting positions as the horse was working and often caused asphyxiation. Around the eighth century, the introduction of the rigid collar eliminated the problem of choking. The rigid collar was "placed over the horses head and rested on its shoulders. This permitted unobstructed breathing and placed the weight of the plow or wagon where the horse could best support it."


title: Medieval technology

text: While horses are already able to travel on all terrain without a protective covering on the hooves, horseshoes allowed horses to travel faster along the more difficult terrains. The practice of shoeing horses was initially practiced in the Roman Empire but lost popularity throughout the Middle Ages until around the 11th century. Although horses in the southern lands could easily work while on the softer soil, the rocky soil of the north proved to be damaging to the horses' hooves. Since the north was the problematic area, this is where shoeing horses first became popular. The introduction of gravel roadways was also cause for the popularity of horseshoeing. The loads a shoed horse could take on these roads were significantly higher than one that was barefoot. By the 14th century, not only did horses have shoes, but many farmers were shoeing oxen and donkeys in order to help prolong the life of their hooves. The size and weight of the horseshoe changed significantly over the course of the Middle Ages. In the 10th century, horseshoes were secured by six nails and weighed around one-quarter of a pound, but throughout the years, the shoes grew larger and by the 14th century, the shoes were being secured with eight nails and weighed nearly half a pound.


title: Medieval technology

text: In this simpler form of crop rotation, one field would grow a crop while the other was allowed to lie fallow. The second field would be used to feed livestock and regain lost nutrients through being fertilized by their waste. Every year, the two fields would switch in order to ensure fields did not become nutrient deficient. In the 11th century, this system was introduced into Sweden and spread to become the most popular form of farming. The system of crop rotation is still used today by many farmers, who will grow corn one year in a field and will then grow beans or other legumes in the field the next year.


title: Medieval technology

text: While the two-field system was used by medieval farmers, a different system was also being developed at the same time. In a three-field system, one field holds a spring crop, such as barley or oats, another field holds a winter crop, such as wheat or rye, and the third field is an off-field that is left alone to grow and is used to help feed livestock. By rotating the three crops to a new part of the land after each year, the off-field regains some of the nutrients lost during the growing of the two crops. This system increases agricultural productivity over the two-field system by only having one-third of the land unused instead of one half. Many scholars believe it helped increase yields by up to 50%.


title: Medieval technology

text: During the medieval period the wine press had been constantly evolving into a more modern and efficient machine that would give wine makers more wine with less work. This device was the first practical means of pressing wine on a flat surface. The wine press was made of a giant wooden basket that was bound together by wooden or metal rings. At the top of the basket was a large disc that would depress the contents in the basket, crushing the grapes and producing the juice to be fermented.


title: Medieval technology

text: The wine press was an expensive piece of machinery that only the wealthy could afford, and grape stomping was still often used as a less expensive alternative. While white wines required the use of a wine press in order to preserve the color of the wine by removing the juices quickly from the skin, red wine did not need to be pressed until the end of the juice removal process since the color did not matter. Many red wine winemakers used their feet to smash the grapes then used a press to remove any juice that remained in the grape skins.


title: Medieval technology

text: Ancient and medieval civilizations needed and used water to grow the human population as well as to partake in daily activities. One of the ways that ancient and medieval people gained access to water was through qanats, which were a water duct system that would bring water from an underground source or river source to villages or cities. A qanat is a tunnel that is just big enough that a single digger could travel through the tunnel and find the source of water as well as allow for water to travel through the duct system to farm land or villages for irrigation or drinking purposes. These tunnels had a gradual slope which used gravity to pull the water from either an aquifer or a water well. This system was originally found in middle eastern areas and is still used today in places where surface water is hard to find. Qanats were very helpful in not losing water while being transported as well. The most famous water duct system was the Roman aqueduct system, and medieval inventors used the aqueduct system as a blueprint for getting water to villages more quickly and easily than diverting rivers. After aqueducts and qanats much other water based technology was created and used in medieval periods including water mills, dams, wells and other such technology for easy access to water.


title: Medieval technology

text: A specific spherical form in the upper corners to support a dome. Although the first experimentation was made in the 3rd century, it wasn't until the 6th century in the Byzantine Empire that its full potential was achieved.


title: Medieval technology

text: A thin rod with a hard iron cutting edge is placed in the bore hole and repeatedly struck with a hammer, underground water pressure forces the water up the hole without pumping. Artesian wells are named after the town of Artois in France, where the first one was drilled by Carthusian monks in 1126.


title: Medieval technology

text: In the early medieval Alpine upland, a simpler central heating system where heat travelled through underfloor channels from the furnace room replaced the Roman hypocaust at some places. In Reichenau Abbey a network of interconnected underfloor channels heated the 300 m large assembly room of the monks during the winter months. The degree of efficiency of the system has been calculated at 90%.


title: Medieval technology

text: An essential element for the rise of Gothic architecture, rib vaults allowed vaults to be built for the first time over rectangles of unequal lengths. It also greatly facilitated scaffolding and largely replaced the older groin vault.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first basic chimney appeared in a Swiss monastery in 820. The earliest true chimney did not appear until the 12th century, with the fireplace appearing at the same time.


title: Medieval technology

text: The Ponte Vecchio in Florence is considered medieval Europe's first stone segmental arch bridge since the end of classical civilizations.


title: Medieval technology

text: The earliest reference to a treadwheel in archival literature is in France about 1225, followed by an illuminated depiction in a manuscript of probably also French origin dating to 1240. Apart from tread-drums, windlasses and occasionally cranks were employed for powering cranes.


title: Medieval technology

text: Stationary harbour cranes are considered a new development of the Middle Ages; its earliest use being documented for Utrecht in 1244. The typical harbour crane was a pivoting structure equipped with double treadwheels. There were two types: wooden gantry cranes pivoting on a central vertical axle and stone tower cranes which housed the windlass and treadwheels with only the jib arm and roof rotating. These cranes were placed on docksides for the loading and unloading of cargo where they replaced or complemented older lifting methods like see-saws, winches and yards. Slewing cranes which allowed a rotation of the load and were thus particularly suited for dockside work appeared as early as 1340.


title: Medieval technology

text: Beside the stationary cranes, floating cranes which could be flexibly deployed in the whole port basin came into use by the 14th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: Some harbour cranes were specialised at mounting masts to newly built sailing ships, such as in Gdańsk, Cologne and Bremen.


title: Medieval technology

text: The wheelbarrow proved useful in building construction, mining operations, and agriculture. Literary evidence for the use of wheelbarrows appeared between 1170 and 1250 in north-western Europe. The first depiction is in a drawing by Matthew Paris in the mid-13th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: As early as the 13th century, oil was used to add details to tempera paintings and paint wooden statues. Flemish painter Jan van Eyck developed the use of a stable oil mixture for panel painting around 1410.


title: Medieval technology

text: Reasonably dependable, affordable and accurate measure of time. Unlike water in a clepsydra, the rate of flow of sand is independent of the depth in the upper reservoir, and the instrument is not liable to freeze. Hourglasses are a medieval innovation (first documented in Siena, Italy).


title: Medieval technology

text: The Italian physician Guido da Vigevano combines in his 1335 "Texaurus", a collection of war machines intended for the recapture of the Holy Land, two simple cranks to form a compound crank for manually powering war carriages and paddle wheel boats. The devices were fitted directly to the vehicle's axle respectively to the shafts turning the paddle wheels.


title: Medieval technology

text: Cast iron had been made in China since before the 4th century BC. European cast iron first appears in Middle Europe (for instance Lapphyttan in Sweden, Dürstel in Switzerland and the Märkische Sauerland in Germany) around 1150, in some places according to recent research even before 1100. The technique is considered to be an independent European development.


title: Medieval technology

text: The ship mill is a Byzantine invention, designed to mill grains using hydraulic power. The technology eventually spread to the rest of Europe and was in use until ca. 1800.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first certain use of a water-powered paper mill, evidence for which is elusive in both Chinese and Muslim paper making, dates to 1282.


title: Medieval technology

text: Used to produce metal sheet of an even thickness. First used on soft, malleable metals, such as lead, gold and tin. Leonardo da Vinci described a rolling mill for wrought iron.


title: Medieval technology

text: The earliest tidal mills were excavated on the Irish coast where watermillers knew and employed the two main waterwheel types: a 6th-century tide mill at Killoteran near Waterford was powered by a vertical waterwheel, while the tide changes at Little Island were exploited by a twin-flume horizontal-wheeled mill (c. 630) and a vertical undershot waterwheel alongside it. Another early example is the Nendrum Monastery mill from 787 which is estimated to have developed seven to eight horsepower at its peak.


title: Medieval technology

text: Invented in Europe as the pivotable post mill, the first surviving mention of one comes from Yorkshire in England in 1185. They were efficient at grinding grain or draining water. Stationary tower mills were also developed in the 13th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: Used in metallurgy to forge the metal blooms from bloomeries and Catalan forges, they replaced manual hammerwork. The water hammer was eventually superseded by steam hammers in the 19th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first European mention of the directional compass is in Alexander Neckam's "On the Natures of Things", written in Paris around 1190. It was either transmitted from China or the Arabs or an independent European innovation. Dry compass were invented in the Mediterranean around 1300.


title: Medieval technology

text: The French scholar Pierre de Maricourt describes in his experimental study "Epistola de magnete" (1269) three different compass designs he has devised for the purpose of astronomical observation.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first depiction of a pintle-and-gudgeon rudder on church carvings dates to around 1180. They first appeared with cogs in the North and Baltic Seas and quickly spread to Mediterranean. The iron hinge system was the first stern rudder permanently attached to the ship hull and made a vital contribution to the navigation achievements of the age of discovery and thereafter.


title: Medieval technology

text: Johannes Gutenberg's great innovation was not the printing itself, but instead of using carved plates as in woodblock printing, he used separate letters ("types") from which the printing plates for pages were made up. This meant the types were recyclable and a page cast could be made up far faster.


title: Medieval technology

text: Paper was invented in China and transmitted through Islamic Spain in the 13th century. In Europe, the paper-making processes was mechanized by water-powered mills and paper presses (see paper mill).


title: Medieval technology

text: A rotating disc and string device used to mark the page, column, and precise level in the text where a person left off reading in a text. Materials used were often leather, velum, or paper.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first spectacles, invented in Florence, used convex lenses which were of help only to the far-sighted. Concave lenses were not developed prior to the 15th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: This medieval innovation was used to mark paper products and to discourage counterfeiting. It was first introduced in Bologna, Italy.


title: Medieval technology

text: A scientific theory that was introduced by John Philoponus who made criticism of Aristotelian principles of physics, and it served as an inspiration to medieval scholars as well as to Galileo Galilei who ten centuries later, during the Scientific Revolution, extensively cited Philoponus in his works while making the case as to why Aristotelian physics was flawed. It is the intellectual precursor to the concepts of inertia, momentum and acceleration in classical mechanics.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first extant treatise describing the properties of magnets was done by Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt when he wrote "Epistola de magnete".


title: Medieval technology

text: The first recorded mention in Europe was in 976, and they were first widely published in 1202 by Fibonacci with his "Liber Abaci".


title: Medieval technology

text: The first medieval universities were founded between the 11th and 13th centuries leading to a rise in literacy and learning. By 1500, the institution had spread throughout most of Europe and played a key role in the Scientific Revolution. Today, the educational concept and institution has been globally adopted.


title: Medieval technology

text: German buttons appeared in 13th-century Germany as an indigenous innovation. They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting clothing.


title: Medieval technology

text: Manufacture of silk began in Eastern Europe in the 6th century and in Western Europe in the 11th or 12th century. Silk had been imported over the Silk Road since antiquity. The technology of "silk throwing" was mastered in Tuscany in the 13th century. The silk works used waterpower and some regard these as the first mechanized textile mills.


title: Medieval technology

text: The earliest predecessors of the game originated in 6th-century AD India and spread via Persia and the Muslim world to Europe. Here the game evolved into its current form in the 15th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: This type of glass uses wood ash and sand as the main raw materials and is characterised by a variety of greenish-yellow colours.


title: Medieval technology

text: Grindstones are a rough stone, usually sandstone, used to sharpen iron. The first rotary grindstone (turned with a leveraged handle) occurs in the "Utrecht Psalter", illustrated between 816 and 834. According to Hägermann, the pen drawing is a copy of a late-antique manuscript. A second crank which was mounted on the other end of the axle is depicted in the "Luttrell Psalter" from around 1340.


title: Medieval technology

text: Primitive forms of distillation were known to the Babylonians, as well as Indians in the first centuries AD. Early evidence of distillation also comes from alchemists working in Alexandria, Roman Egypt, in the 1st century. The medieval Arabs adopted the distillation process, which later spread to Europe. Texts on the distillation of waters, wine, and other spirits were written in Salerno and Cologne in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.


title: Medieval technology

text: Liquor consumption rose dramatically in Europe in and after the mid-14th century, when distilled liquors were commonly used as remedies for the Black Death. These spirits would have had a much lower alcohol content (about 40% ABV) than the alchemists' pure distillations, and they were likely first thought of as medicinal elixirs. Around 1400, methods to distill spirits from wheat, barley, and rye were discovered. Thus began the "national" drinks of Europe, including gin (England) and "grappa" (Italy). In 1437, "burned water" (brandy) was mentioned in the records of the County of Katzenelnbogen in Germany.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first mention of a "glass" mirror is in 1180 by Alexander Neckham who said "Take away the lead which is behind the glass and there will be no image of the one looking in."


title: Medieval technology

text: Guido da Vigevano (c. 1280 − 1349) was the first author to add illustrations to his anatomical descriptions. His "Anathomia" provides pictures of neuroanatomical structures and techniques such as the dissection of the head by means of trephination, and depictions of the meninges, cerebrum, and spinal cord.


title: Medieval technology

text: Initially a 40-day-period, the quarantine was introduced by the Republic of Ragusa as a measure of disease prevention related to the Black Death. It was later adopted by Venice from where the practice spread all around in Europe.


title: Medieval technology

text: The first mention of a rat trap is in the medieval romance "Yvain, the Knight of the Lion" by Chrétien de Troyes.


title: Medieval technology

text: There was a vast amount of armour technology available through the 5th to 16th centuries. Most soldiers during this time wore padded or quilted armor. This was the cheapest and most available armor for the majority of soldiers. Quilted armour was usually just a jacket made of thick linen and wool meant to pad or soften the impact of blunt weapons and light blows. Although this technology predated the 5th century, it was still extremely prevalent because of the low cost and the weapon technology at the time made the bronze armor of the Greeks and Romans obsolete. Quilted armour was also used in conjunction with other types of armour. Usually worn over or under leather, mail, and later plate armour.


title: Medieval technology

text: Hardened leather armour also called Cuir Bouilli was a step up from quilted armour. Made by boiling leather in either water, wax or oil to soften it so it can be shaped, it would then be allowed to dry and become very hard. Large pieces of armour could be made such as breastplates, helmets, and leg guards, but many times smaller pieces would be sewn into the quilting of quilted armour or strips would be sewn together on the outside of a linen jacket. This was not as affordable as the quilted armour but offered much better protection against edged slashing weapons.


title: Medieval technology

text: The most common type during the 11th through the 16th centuries was the Hauberk, also known earlier than the 11th century as the Carolingian byrnie. Made of interlinked rings of metal, it sometimes consisted of a coif that covered the head and a tunic that covered the torso, arms, and legs down to the knees. Chain mail was very effective at protecting against light slashing blows but ineffective against stabbing or thrusting blows. The great advantage was that it allowed great freedom of movement and was relatively light with significant protection over quilted or hardened leather armour. It was far more expensive than the hardened leather or quilted armour because of the massive amount of labor it required to create. This made it unattainable for most soldiers and only the more wealthy soldiers could afford it. Later, toward the end of the 13th century banded mail became popular. Constructed of washer shaped rings of iron overlapped and woven together by straps of leather as opposed to the interlinked metal rings of chain mail, banded mail was much more affordable to manufacture. The washers were so tightly woven together that it was very difficult penetrate and offered greater protection from arrow and bolt attacks.


title: Medieval technology

text: The Jazerant or Jazeraint was an adaptation of chain mail in which the chain mail would be sewn in between layers of linen or quilted armour. Exceptional protection against light slashing weapons and slightly improved protection against small thrusting weapons, but little protection against large blunt weapons such as maces and axes. This gave birth to reinforced chain mail and became more prevalent in the 12th and 13th century. Reinforced armour was made up of chain mail with metal plates or hardened leather plates sewn in. This greatly improved protection from stabbing and thrusting blows.


title: Medieval technology

text: A type of Lamellar armour, was made up entirely of small, overlapping plates. Either sewn together, usually with leather straps, or attached to a backing such as linen, or a quilted armor. Scale armour does not require the labor to produce that chain mail does and therefore is more affordable. It also affords much better protection against thrusting blows and pointed weapons. Though, it is much heavier, more restrictive and impedes free movement.


title: Medieval technology

text: Plate armour covered the entire body. Although parts of the body were already covered in plate armour as early as 1250, such as the Poleyns for covering the knees and Couters – plates that protected the elbows, the first complete full suit without any textiles was seen around 1410–1430. Components of medieval armour that made up a full suit consisted of a cuirass, a gorget, vambraces, gauntlets, cuisses, greaves, and sabatons held together by internal leather straps. Improved weaponry such as crossbows and the long bow had greatly increased range and power. This made penetration of the chain mail hauberk much easier and more common. By the mid-15th century most plate was worn alone and without the need of a hauberk. Advances in metal working such as the blast furnace and new techniques for carburizing made plate armour nearly impenetrable and the best armour protection available at the time. Although plate armour was fairly heavy, because each suit was custom tailored to the wearer, it was very easy to move around in. A full suit of plate armour was extremely expensive and mostly unattainable for the majority of soldiers. Only very wealthy land owners and nobility could afford it. The quality of plate armour increases as more armour makers became more proficient in metal working. A suit of plate armour became a symbol of social status and the best made were personalized with embellishments and engravings. Plate armour saw continued use in battle until the 17th century.


title: Medieval technology

text: The arched saddle enabled mounted knights to wield lances underarm and prevent the charge from turning into an unintentional pole-vault. This innovation gave birth to true shock cavalry, enabling fighters to charge on full gallop.


title: Medieval technology

text: Spurs were invented by the Normans and appeared at the same time as the cantled saddle. They enabled the horseman to control his horse with his feet, replacing the whip and leaving his arms free. Rowel spurs familiar from cowboy films were already known in the 13th century. Gilded spurs were the ultimate symbol of the knighthood – even today someone is said to "earn his spurs" by proving his or her worthiness.


title: Medieval technology

text: Stirrups were invented by steppe nomads in what is today Mongolia and northern China in the 4th century. They were introduced in Byzantium in the 6th century and in the Carolingian Empire in the 8th. They allowed a mounted knight to wield a sword and strike from a distance leading to a great advantage for mounted cavalry.


title: Medieval technology

text: Cannons are first recorded in Europe at the siege of Metz in 1324. In 1350 Petrarch wrote "these instruments which discharge balls of metal with most tremendous noise and flashes of fire...were a few years ago very rare and were viewed with greatest astonishment and admiration, but now they are become as common and familiar as kinds of arms."


title: Medieval technology

text: First practiced in Western Europe, corning the black powder allowed for more powerful and faster ignition of cannons. It also facilitated the storage and transportation of black powder. Corning constituted a crucial step in the evolution of gunpowder warfare.


title: Medieval technology

text: Extant examples include the wrought-iron Pumhart von Steyr, Dulle Griet and Mons Meg as well as the cast-bronze Faule Mette and Faule Grete (all from the 15th century).


title: Medieval technology

text: Powered solely by the force of gravity, these catapults revolutionized medieval siege warfare and construction of fortifications by hurling huge stones unprecedented distances. Originating somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean basin, counterweight trebuchets were introduced in the Byzantine Empire around 1100 CE, and was later adopted by the Crusader states and as well by the other armies of Europe and Asia.


title: Medieval technology

text: An incendiary weapon which could even burn on water is also attributed to the Byzantines, where they installed it on their ships. It played a crucial role in the Byzantine Empire's victory over the Umayyad Caliphate during the 717-718 Siege of Constantinople.


title: Medieval technology

text: Rudimentary incendiary grenades appeared in the Byzantine Empire, as the Byzantine soldiers learned that Greek fire, a Byzantine invention of the previous century, could not only be thrown by flamethrowers at the enemy, but also in stone and ceramic jars.


title: Medieval technology

text: Having a high rate of fire and penetration power, the longbow contributed to the eventual demise of the medieval knight class. Used particularly by the English to great effect against the French cavalry during the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453).


title: Medieval technology

text: European innovation came with several different cocking aids to enhance draw power, making the weapons also the first hand-held mechanical crossbows.


title: Medieval technology

text: The battle of Halidon Hill 1333 was the first battle where intentional and disciplined combined arms infantry tactics were employed. The English men-at-arms dismounted aside the archers, combining thus the staying power of super-heavy infantry and striking power of their two-handed weapons with the missiles and mobility of the archers using longbows and shortbows. Combining dismounted knights and men-at-arms with archers was the archetypal Western Medieval battle tactics until the battle of Flodden 1513 and final emergence of firearms.


title: Syrians

text: Syrians (, "Sūriyyīn") are an Eastern Mediterranean ethnic group indigenous to the Levant. They share common Levantine Semitic roots. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend of both indigenous elements and the foreign cultures that have come to inhabit the region of Syria over the course of thousands of years. The mother tongue of most Syrians is Levantine Arabic, which came to replace the former mother tongue, Aramaic, following the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. The conquest led to the establishment of the Caliphate under successive Arab dynasties, who, during the period of the later Abbasid Caliphate, promoted the use of the Arabic language. A minority of Syrians have retained Aramaic which is still spoken in its Eastern and Western dialects. In 2018, the Syrian Arab Republic had an estimated population of 19.5 million, which includes, aside from the aforementioned majority, ethnic minorities such as Kurds, Turks, Armenians, Assyrians, and others.


title: Syrians

text: Before the Syrian Civil War, there was quite a large Syrian diaspora, who had immigrated to North America (United States and Canada), European Union member states (including Sweden, France, and Germany), South America (mainly in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Chile), the West Indies, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Six million refugees of the Syrian Civil War also live outside Syria now, mostly in Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon.


title: Syrians

text: Various sources indicate that the name "Syria" itself is derived from Luwian term "Sura/i", and the derivative ancient Greek name: , ', or , ', both of which originally derived from the Akkadian word Aššūrāyu (Assyria) in northern Mesopotamia, modern-day Iraq However, during the Seleucid Empire, this term was also applied to The Levant, and henceforth the Greeks applied the term without distinction between the Assyrians of north Mesopotamia and Arameans of the Levant.


title: Syrians

text: The Greeks used the terms "Syrian" and "Assyrian" interchangeably to indicate the indigenous Arameans, Assyrians and other inhabitants of the Levant and Mesopotamia, Herodotus considered "Syria" west of the Euphrates. Starting from the 2nd century BC onwards, ancient writers referred to the ruler of the Seleucid Empire as the King of Syria or King of the Syrians. The Seleucids designated the districts of Seleucis and Coele-Syria explicitly as Syria and ruled the Syrians as indigenous populations residing west of the Euphrates (Aramea) in contrast to Assyrians who had their native homeland in Mesopotamia east of the Euphrates. However, the interchangeability between Assyrians and Syrians persisted during the Hellenistic period.


title: Syrians

text: In one instance, the Ptolemaic dynasty of the Hellenistic kingdom of Egypt applied the term "Syrian Village" as the name of a settlement in Fayoum. The term "Syrians" is under debate whether it referred to Jews or to Arameans, as the Ptolemies referred to all peoples originating from Modern Syria and Palestine as Syrian.


title: Syrians

text: The term "Syrian" was imposed upon Arameans of modern Levant by the Romans. Pompey created the province of Syria, which included modern-day Lebanon and Syria west of the Euphrates, framing the province as a regional social category with civic implications. Plutarch described the indigenous people of this newly created Roman province as "Syrians", so did Strabo, who observed that Syrians resided west of the Euphrates in Roman Syria, and he explicitly mentions that those Syrians are the Arameans, whom he calls "Aramaei", indicating an extant ethnicity. Posidonius noted that the people called Syrians by the Greeks refer to themselves as Arameans.


title: Syrians

text: In his book "The Great Roman-Jewish War", Josephus, a Hebrew native to the Levant, mentioned the Syrians as the non-Hebrew, non-Greek indigenous inhabitants of Syria.


title: Syrians

text: The Arabs called the Greater Syria region "al-Sham" (). The national and ethnic designation "Syrian" is one that has been reused, accepted and espoused by the Syrian people since the advent of the modern national identity, which emanated from Europe and began with the culmination of the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s.


title: Syrians

text: Syrians are of diverse origins; the main influence came from ancient Semitic peoples of the Levant such as the Arameans, as well as populations from Mesopotamia and modern-day Arabia, with additional Greco-Roman influence. Ancient Syria of the first millennium BC was dominated by the Aramaeans; they originated in the Northern Levant as a continuum of the Bronze Age populations of Syria, possibly being derived from the same population as ancient Phoenician or Canaanite peoples. The Seleucids ruled the Syrians as a conquered nation; Syrians were not assimilated into Greek communities, and many local peasants were exploited financially as they had to pay rent for Greek landlords. Outside Greek colonies, the Syrians lived in districts governed by local temples that did not use the Greek civic system of "poleis" and colonies. The situation changed after the Roman conquest in 64 BC; Syrians obtained the citizenship of Greek "poleis", and the line separating between the colonists and the colonized blurred. The idioms Syrian and Greek were used by Rome to denote civic societies instead of separate ethnic groups.


title: Syrians

text: The Aramaeans assimilated the earlier Greek and Roman populations through their language; combined with the religion of Christianity, most of the inhabitants turned into Syrians (Aramaeans). Islam and the Arabic language had a similar effect where the Aramaeans themselves became Arabs regardless of their ethnic origin following the Muslim conquest of the Levant. The presence of Arabs in Syria is recorded since the 9th century BC, and Roman period historians, such as Strabo, Pliny the Elder, and Ptolemy, reported that Arabs inhabited many parts of Syria. What antiquity's writers meant by the designation "Arab" is debated; the historian Michael Macdonald suggested that the term is an ethnic designation based on an "ill-defined complex of linguistic and cultural characteristics", while according to academic consensus, "Arab", in addition to it being an ethnic name, had a social meaning describing a nomadic way of life. The "urheimat" of the Arab ethnos is unclear; the traditional 19th century theory locates this in the Arabian Peninsula, while some modern scholars, such as David Frank Graf, note that the epigraphic and archaeological evidence render the traditional theory inadequate to explain the Arabs' appearance in Syria. The Arabs mentioned in Syria by Greco-Roman writers were assimilated into the newly formed "Greco–Aramaean culture" that dominated the region, and the texts they produced were written in Greek, Aramaic and Old Arabic, the precursor of Classical Arabic, which was not a literary language; its speakers used Aramaic for writing purposes.


title: Syrians

text: On the eve of the Rashidun Caliphate conquest of the Levant, 634 AD, Syria's population mainly spoke Aramaic as the Lingua franca, while Greek was the language of administration. Arabization and Islamization of Syria began in the 7th century, and it took several centuries for Islam, the Arab identity, and language to spread; the Arabs of the caliphate did not attempt to spread their language or religion in the early periods of the conquest, and formed an isolated aristocracy. The Arabs of the caliphate accommodated many new tribes in isolated areas to avoid conflict with the locals; caliph Uthman ordered his governor, Muawiyah I, to settle the new tribes away from the original population. Syrians who belonged to Monophysitic denominations welcomed the Muslim Arabs as liberators.


title: Syrians

text: The Abbasids in the eighth and ninth century sought to integrate the peoples under their authority, and the Arabization of the administration was one of their methods. Arabization gained momentum with the increasing numbers of Muslim converts from Christianity; the ascendancy of Arabic as the formal language of the state prompted the cultural and linguistic assimilation of Syrian converts. Some of those who remained Christian also became arabized, while others stayed Aramean, it was probably during the Abbasid period in the ninth century that Christians adopted Arabic as their first language; the first translation of the gospels into Arabic took place in this century. Many historians, such as Claude Cahen and Bernard Hamilton, proposed that the Arabization of Christians was completed before the First Crusade. By the thirteenth century, the Arabic language achieved complete dominance in the region, with many of its speakers having become Arabs.Those who retained the Aramaic language are divided among two groups:


title: Syrians

text: Besides religious identities, the Syrian people are split among three identities, the Arab, Syriac, and Syrian identities. Many Muslims and some Arabic-speaking Christians describe themselves as Arabs, while many Aramaic-speaking Christians and some Muslims prefer to describe themselves as Syriacs or Arameans. Also some people from Syria, mainly Syrian nationalists, describe themselves only as Syrians or ethnic Syrians. Most of the divisions in ethnic nomenclature are actually due to religious backgrounds.


title: Syrians

text: Genetic tests on Syrians were included in many genetic studies. The genetic marker which identifies descendants of the ancient Levantines is found in Syrians in high proportion. Modern Syrians exhibit "high affinity to the Levant" based on studies comparing modern and ancient DNA samples. Syrians cluster closely with ancient Levantine populations of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. A Levantine ancestral genetic component was identified; it is estimated that the Levantine, the Peninsular Arabian and East African ancestral components diverged 23,700-15,500 years ago, while the divergence between the Levantine and European components happened 15,900-9,100 years ago. The Levantine ancestral component is the most recurrent in Levantines (42–68%); the Peninsular Arabian and East African ancestral components represent around 25% of Syrian genetic make-up.


title: Syrians

text: The paternal Y-DNA haplogroup J1, which reaches its highest frequencies in Yemen 72.6% and Qatar 58.3%, accounted for 33.6% of Syrians. The J2 group accounted for 20.8% of Syrians; other Y-DNA haplogroups include the E1B1B 12.0%, I 5.0%, R1a 10.0% and R1b 15.0%. The Syrians are closest to other Levantine populations: the Lebanese, the Palestinians and Jordanians; this closeness can be explained with the common Canaanite ancestry and geographical unity which was broken only in the twentieth century with the advent of British and French mandates. Regarding the genetic relation between the Syrians and the Lebanese based on Y-DNA, Muslims from Lebanon show closer relation to Syrians than their Christian compatriots. The people of Western Syria show close relation with the people of Northern Lebanon.


title: Syrians

text: Mitochondrial DNA shows the Syrians to have affinity with Europe; main haplogroups are H and R. Based on Mitochondrial DNA, the Syrians, Palestinian, Lebanese and Jordanians form a close cluster. Compared to the Lebanese, Bedouins and Palestinians, the Syrians have noticeably more Northern European component, estimated at 7%. Regarding the HLA alleles, Syrians, and other Levantine populations, exhibit "key differences" from other Arab populations; based on HLA-DRB1 alleles, Syrians were close to eastern Mediterranean populations, such as the Cretans and Lebanese Armenians. Studying the genetic relation between Jews and Syrians showed that the two populations share close affinity. Apparently, the cultural influence of Arab expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean in the seventh century was more prominent than the genetic influx. However, the expansion of Islam did leave an impact on Levantine genes; religion drove Levantine Muslims to mix with other Muslim populations, who were close culturally despite the geographic distance, and this produced genetic similarities between Levantine Muslims and Moroccan and Yemeni populations. Christians and Druze became a genetic isolate in the predominantly Islamic world.


title: Syrians

text: Arabic is the mother tongue of the majority of Syrians as well as the official state language. The Syrian variety of Levantine Arabic differs from Modern Standard Arabic. Western Neo-Aramaic, the only surviving Western Aramaic language, is still spoken in three villages (Ma'loula, Al-Sarkha (Bakhah) and Jubb'adin) in the Anti-Lebanon Mountains by both Muslim and Christian residents. Syriac-Arameans in the northeast of the country are mainly Surayt/Turoyo speakers but there are also some speakers of Sureth Aramaic, especially in the Khabour Valley. Classical Syriac is also used as a liturgical language by Syriac Christians. English, and to a lesser extent French, is widely understood and used in interactions with tourists and other foreigners.


title: Syrians

text: Religious differences in Syria have historically been tolerated, and religious minorities tend to retain distinct cultural, and religious identities.


title: Syrians

text: Sunni Islam is the religion of 74% of Syrians. The Alawites, a variety of Shia Islam, make up 12% of the population and mostly live in and around Tartus and Latakia. Christians make up 10% of the country. Most Syrian Christians adhere to the Byzantine Rite; the two largest are the Antiochian Orthodox Church and the Melkite Greek Catholic Church. The Druze are a mountainous people who reside in Jabal al-Druze who helped spark the Great Syrian Revolt. The Ismailis are an even smaller sect that originated in Asia. Many Armenian and Assyrian Christians fled Turkey during the Armenian genocide and the Assyrian genocide and settled in Syria. There are also roughly 500,000 Palestinians, who are mostly descendants of refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab War. The community of Syrian Jews inside Syria once numbered 30,000 in 1947, but has only 200 today.


title: Syrians

text: The Syrian people's beliefs and outlooks, similar to those of most Arabs and people of the wider Middle-East, are a mosaic of West and East. Conservative and liberally minded people will live right next to each other. Like the other countries in the region, religion permeates life; the government registers every Syrian's religious affiliation. However, the number of non-believers in Syria is increasing but there is no credible source or statistics to support this information.


title: Syrians

text: Syrian cuisine is dominated by ingredients native to the region. Olive oil, garlic, olives, spearmint, and sesame oil are some of the ingredients that are used in many traditional meals. Traditional Syrian dishes enjoyed by Syrians include, tabbouleh, labaneh, shanklish, wara' 'enab, makdous, kebab, Kibbeh, sfiha, moutabal, hummus, mana'eesh, bameh, and fattoush.