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Year In Review 16th Century

Year in Review 16th Century

As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. See also: 16th century in literature

Events

- 1501: Safavid dynasty rules Iran until 1736.
- 1509: The Battle of Diu marks the beginning of Portuguese dominance of the Spice trade.
- 1514: The Battle of Orsha halts Muscovy's expansion into Eastern Europe.
- 1515: The Ottoman Empire wrests Eastern Anatolia from the Safavids after the Battle of Chaldiran.
- 1516-17: The Ottomans defeat the Mamluks and gain control of Egypt, Arabia, and the Levant.
- 1517: The Protestant Reformation begins when Martin Luther posts his 95 Theses in Saxony.
- 1519-21: Hernán Cortés leads the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire.
- 1520-66: The reign of Suleiman the Magnificent marks the zenith of the Ottoman Empire.
- 1521: Belgrade is captured by the Ottoman Empire.
- 1523: Sweden gains independence from the Kalmar Union.
- 1524-25: Peasants' War in the Holy Roman Empire.
- 1526: The Ottomans conquer the Kingdom of Hungary at the Battle of Mohács.
- 1526: Mughal Empire, founded by Babur, rules India until 1857.
- 1527: Sack of Rome is considered the end of the Italian Renaissance.
- 1529: The Siege of Vienna marks the Ottoman Empire's furthest advance into Europe.
- 1531-32: The Church of England breaks away from the Roman Catholic Church and recognizes King Henry VIII as the head of the Church.
- 1532: Francisco Pizarro leads the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire.
- 1534: Jacques Cartier claims Quebec for France.
- 1534: The Ottomans capture Baghdad.
- 1543: The Nanban trade period begins after Portuguese traders make contact with Japan.
- 1552: Russia conquers the Khanate of Kazan.
- 1553: Macau founded by Portuguese in China.
- 1555: The Muscovy Company is the first major English joint stock trading company.
- 1556: The Shaanxi Earthquake in China is history's deadliest known earthquake.
- 1556: Russia conquers the Astrakhan Khanate.
- 1556-1605: During his reign, Akbar expands the Mughal Empire in a series of conquests and is considered the greatest Mughal emperor.
- 1558-1603: The Elizabethan era is considered the height of the English Renaissance.
- 1558-83: Livonian War between Poland, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.
- 1558: After 200 years, England loses Calais to France.
- 1559: With the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis, the Italian Wars conclude.
- 1562-98: French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots.
- 1566-1648: Eighty Years' War between Spain and the Netherlands.
- 1568-1600: The Azuchi-Momoyama period in Japan.
- 1569: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is created with the Union of Lublin which lasts until 1795.
- 1577-80: Francis Drake circles the World and claims California for England.
- 1580: After the struggle for the throne of Portugal, the Portuguese Empire comes to an end and the Spanish and Portuguese crowns are united for 60 years.
- 1582: Yermak Timofeyevich conquers the Siberia Khanate on behalf of the Stroganovs.
- 1584-85: After the Siege of Antwerp, many of its merchants fled to Amsterdam.
- 1585-1604: The Anglo-Spanish War is fought on both sides of the Atlantic.
- 1588: England repulses the Spanish Armada.
- 1589: Spain repulses the English Armada.
- 1592-98: Korea and China repel two Japanese invasions during the Seven-Year War.
- 1598-1613: Russia descends into anarchy during the Time of Troubles.
- 1600: British East India Company chartered.

Significant people

British East India Company]
- Nicolaus Copernicus, developed the heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory using scientific methods (1473 - 1543).
- Henry VII of England, founder of the Tudor dynasty. Introduced ruthlessly efficient mechanisms of taxation which restored the kingdom after a state of virtual bankruptcy due to the effects of the Wars of the Roses (1457 - 1509).
- György Dózsa, leader of the peasants' revolt in Hungary (1470 - 1514)
- Michelangelo Buonarroti, Italian painter and sculptor (1475 - 1564).
- Thomas More, English politician and author (1478 - 1535).
- Martin Luther, German religious reformer (1483 - 1546).
- Hernán Cortés, Spanish Conquistador (1485 - 1547).
- King Henry VIII of England, founder of Anglicanism (1491 - 1547).
- King Francis I of France, considered the first Renaissance monarch of his Kingdom (1494 - 1547).
- Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Conqueror and legal reformer (1494 - 1566).
- Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and the first to reign as King of Spain. Involved in almost constant conflict with France and the Ottoman Empire while promoting the Spanish colonization of the Americas (1500 - 1558).
- Cuauhtémoc becomes last Tlatoani of the Aztec, leads the native resistance against the Spanish and is finally defeated in the siege of Tenochtitlan. He is hanged on February 26, 1525 (1502 - 1525)
- Mary I of England. Attempted to counter the Protestant Reformation in her domains. Nick-named Bloody Mary for her Religious persecution (1516 - 1558).
- King Philip II of Spain, self-proclaimed leader of Counter-Reformation (1527 - 1598).
- Queen Elizabeth I of England, central figure of the Elizabethan era (1533 - 1603).
- Oda Nobunaga , daimyo of the Sengoku period of Japanese civil war. First ruler of the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1534 - 1582).
- Toyotomi Hideyoshi , daimyo of the Sengoku period of Japanese civil war. Second ruler of the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1536 - 1598).
- Admiral Yi Sun-sin , respected as one of the greatest admirals and military leaders in world history. (1545 - 1598).
- Edward VI of England, notable for further differentiating Anglicanism from the practices of the Roman Catholic Church (1537 - 1553).
- Lady Jane Grey, Queen regnant of England and Ireland. Notably deposed by popular revolt (1537 - 1554).
- Queen Mary I of Scotland, First female head of the House of Stuart (1542 - 1587).
- Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish author (1547 - 1616).
- King Henry IV of France and Navarre, ended the French Wars of Religion and reunited the kingdom under his command (1553 - 1610).
- William Shakespeare, English author (1564 - 1616).
- John Donne, English metaphysical poet (1572 - 1631)
- Miyamoto Musashi, famous warrior in Japan, author of The Book of Five Rings, a treatise on strategy and martial combat. (1584 - 1645)
- Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi, Somali Imam and general (1507 - 1543).
- Ivan IV of Russia, first Russian tsar (1530-1584).

Inventions, discoveries, introductions

List of 16th century inventions
- The Columbian Exchange introduces many plants, animals and diseases to the Old and New Worlds.
- Introduction of the spinning wheel revolutionizes textile production in Europe.
- Modern square root symbol (√ )
- Copernicus publishes his theory that the Earth and the other planets revolve around the Sun (1543)
- Gregorian Calendar adopted by Catholic countries (1582)
- 1513: Juan Ponce de León sights Florida and Vasco Núñez de Balboa sights the eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean.
- 1519-22: Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano lead the first circumnavigation of the World.
- 1540: Francisco Vásquez de Coronado sights the Grand Canyon.
- 1541-42: Francisco de Orellana sails the length of the Amazon River.
- 1597: Opera in Florence by Jacopo Peri

Decades and years

Category:16th century Category:Centuries ko:16세기 ja:16世紀 th:คริสต์ศตวรรษที่ 16

Time

Attempting to understand Time has long been a prime occupation for philosophers, scientists and artists. There are widely divergent views about its meaning, hence it is difficult to provide an uncontroversial and clear definition of time. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole". Another standard dictionary definition is "a non-spatial linear continuum wherein events occur in an apparently irreversible order." This article looks at some of the main philosophical and scientific issues relating to time. The measurement of time has also occupied scientists and technologists, and was a prime motivation in astronomy. Time is also a matter of significant social importance, having economic value ("time is money") as well as personal value due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in our lives. Units of time have been agreed upon to quantify the duration of events and the intervals between them. Regularly recurring events and objects with apparently periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time - such as the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum.

Philosophy of time

Main article: Philosophy of space and time; Ontology In ancient thought, Zeno's paradoxes challenged the conception of infinite divisibility, and eventually led to the development of calculus. Parmenides (of whom Zeno was a follower) believed that time, motion, and change were illusions, basing this on a rather interesting argument. More recently, McTaggart held a similar belief. Newton believed time and space form a container for events, which is as real as the objects it contains. In contrast, Leibniz believed that time and space are a conceptual apparatus describing the interrelations between events. Leibniz and others thought of time as a fundamental part of an abstract conceptual framework, together with space and number, within which we sequence events, quantify their duration, and compare the motions of objects. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows", that objects "move through", or that is a "container" for events. The bucket argument proved problematic for Leibniz, and his account fell into disfavour, at least amongst scientists, until the development of Mach's principle. Modern physics views the curvature of spacetime around an object as much a feature of that object as are its mass and volume. Immanuel Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, described time as an a priori notion that allows us (together with other a priori notions such as space) to comprehend sense experience. With Kant, neither space nor time are conceived as substances, but rather both are elements of a systematic framework necessarily structuring the experiences of any rational agent. Spatial measurements are used to quantify how far apart objects are, and temporal measurements are used to quantify how far apart events occur. Nietzsche, inspired by the concept of eternal return in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, argued that time possesses a circular characteristic. Postulating an infinite past, "all things" must have come to pass therein; the same for an infinite future. In Existentialism, time is considered fundamental to the question of being, in particular by the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

Contemporary theses in the philosophy of time

In contempoary philosophy there has been a very active debate over the nature of time, especially in light of the big changes in physics since the 1920s. Contributors include Ned Markosian, Ted Sider, Quentin Smith, and L. Nathan Oaklander. Two major theses have been developed, along with some hybrids. There is no real consensus among philosophers about which, if any, is correct. The two major theories can be summed up as follows: 1. A-theory of time: Presentism: Oaklander writes: "[A] version of the pure A-theory, known as "", purports to avoid… the problem of change... According to presentism, only the present exists. Thus, it is not the case that, say, O is green and [then] O is red [if, for example, O is a tomato]." (Oaklander, L. Nathan. In Smith, Quentin, and Oaklander, L. Nathan. 1995. Time, Change, and Freedom. New York: Routledge. 2004, 27.) 2. B-theory of time: Eternalism: the following passage from L. Nathan Oaklander sums this up

…[T]ime [involves] events strung out along a series united to one another by the relations of earlier than, later and simultaneity… The events in the temporal series are fixed in that they never change their position relative to each other… It has become customary to call the entire series of events spread out along the time-line from earlier to later, the “B-series.” When viewed solely in terms of the B-series, time is thought of as static or unchanging for there is nothing about temporal relations between events that changes... Time not only has a static aspect, it also has a transitory aspect. In addition to conceiving of time in terms of events standing in temporal relations, we also conceive of time and the events in time as moving or passing from the far future to the near future, from the hear future to the present, and then from present they recede into the more and more distant past… When events are ordered in terms of the notions of past, present, or future they form what is called an “A-series.” It should be noted, of course, that the A- and B-series are not really “two” different series of events, but the same series ordered in two different ways. (Oaklander 2004,Page 69)

Time in physics

never change Main article: Time in physics Time is currently one of the few fundamental quantities (quantities which cannot be defined via other quantities because there is nothing more fundamental known at present). Thus, similar to definition of other fundamental quantities (like space and mass), time is defined via measurement. Currently, the standard time interval (called conventional second, or simply second) is defined as 9 192 631 770 oscillations of a hyperfine transition in the ¹³³Cs atom. Prior to Albert Einstein's relativistic physics, time and space had been treated as distinct dimensions; Einstein linked time and space into spacetime. Einstein showed that people traveling at different speeds will measure different times for events and different distances between objects, though these differences are minute unless one is traveling at a speed close to that of light. Many subatomic particles exist for only a fixed fraction of a second in a lab relatively at rest, but some that travel close to the speed of light can be measured to travel further and survive longer than expected. According to the special theory of relativity, in the high-speed particle's frame of reference, it exists for the same amount of time as usual, and the distance it travels in that time is what would be expected for that velocity. Relative to a frame of reference at rest, time seems to "slow down" for the particle. Relative to the high-speed particle, distances seems to shorten. Even in Newtonian terms time may be considered the fourth dimension of motion; but Einstein showed how both temporal and spatial dimensions can be altered (or "warped") by high-speed motion. Einstein (The Meaning Of Relativity - 1968): "Two events taking place at the points A and B of a system K are simultaneous if they appear at the same instant when observed from the middle point, M, of the interval AB. Time is then defined as the ensemble of the indications of similar clocks, at rest relatively to K, which register the same simultaneously."

Measurement

Present day standards

The standard unit for time is the SI second, from which larger units are defined like the minute, hour, and day. Because they do not use the decimal system, and because of the occasional need for a leap-second, the minute, hour, and day are "non-SI" units, but are officially accepted for use with the International System. There are no fixed ratios between seconds (or days) on the one hand and months and years on the other hand -- months and years having significant variations in length. Despite its great social importance, the week is not mentioned even as a "non-SI" unit. ([http://www1.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/si-brochure.pdf See external pdf file: The International System of Units].) The measurement of time is so critical to the functioning of our modern societies that it is coordinated at an international level. The basis for scientific time is a continuous count of seconds based on atomic clocks around the world, known as International Atomic Time (TAI). This is the yardstick for other time scales including Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) which is the basis for civil time. The 60 base used for seconds, minutes and hours is all the remains of the ancient Phoenician counting base, using 60 as the equivalent of 10, or 100 in modern times. A 60 base is known as sexagesimal.

Chronology

Another form of time measurement consists of studying the past. Events in the past can be ordered in a sequence (creating a chronology), and be put into chronological groups (periodization). One of the most important systems of periodization is Geologic time, which is a system of periodizing the events that shaped the Earth and its life. Chronology, periodization, and interpretation of the past are together known as the study of history.

Psychology

Different people may judge identical lengths of time quite differently. Time can "fly"; that is, a long period of time can seem to go by very quickly. Likewise, time can seem to "drag," as in when one performs a boring task. The psychologist Jean Piaget called this form of time perception "lived time". Time appears to go fast when sleeping, or, to put it differently, time seems not to have passed while asleep. Time also appears to pass more quickly as one gets older. For example, a day for a child seems to last longer than a day for an adult. One possible reason for this is that with increasing age, each segment of time is an increasingly smaller percentage of the person's total experience. Altered states of consciousness are sometimes characterised by a different estimation of time. Some psychoactive substances--such as entheogens--may also dramatically alter a person's temporal judgement. In explaining his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying that although sitting next to a pretty girl for an hour feels like a minute, placing one's hand on a hot stove for a minute feels like an hour. This is intended to introduce the listener to the concept of the interval between two events being perceived differently by different observers.

Use of time

The use of time is an important issue in understanding human behaviour, education, and travel behaviour. The question concerns how time is allocated across a number of activities (such as time spent at home, at work, shopping, etc.). Time use changes with technology, as the television or the Internet created new opportunities to use time in different ways. However, some aspects of time use are relatively stable over long periods of time, such as the amount of time spent traveling to work, which despite major changes in transport, has been observed to be about 20-30 minutes one-way for a large number of cities over a long period of time. This has led to the disputed time budget hypothesis. Time management is the organization of tasks or events by first estimating how much time a task will take to be completed, when it must be completed, and then adjusting events that would interfere with its completion so that completion is reached in the appropriate amount of time. Calendars and day planners are common examples of time management tools. Arlie Russell Hochschild and Norbert Elias have written on the use of time from a sociological perspective.

References

- Oxford English Dictionary - [http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/time?view=uk]

External links

Perception of time

- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/ The Experience and Perception of Time]
- [http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003125/ Subjective Perception of Time and a Progressive Present Moment: The Neurobiological Key to Unlocking Consciousness]
- [http://www.primitivism.com/time.htm Time and Its Discontents]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-5/time.htm Time and Learning]
- [http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2004/12/by-request-time-perception-i.html Time Perception I] and [http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2004/12/time-perception-ii-cognitive-factors.html II]
- [http://theorderoftime.org/ The Order of Time: Platform for an Alternative Time Consciousness]
- [http://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=74335 What is Time?] An elucidation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's comments on the topic.

Physics

- [http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/world.html A walk through Time]
- [http://pages.britishlibrary.net/lobster/tmx Time Travel and Multi-Dimensionality]
- [http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0310055 Time and classical and quantum mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. discontinuity]
- [http://www.sankey.ws/time.html Time as a universal consequence of quanta]

Timekeeping

- [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html Different systems of measuring time]
- [http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html non-SI units]
- [http://www1.bipm.org/en/scientific/tai/time_server.html UTC/TAI Timeserver]
- [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html Leapsecond]
- [http://www.intuitor.com/hex/hexclock.html Hex Time]
- [http://www.florencetime.net Florencetime.net]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3486160.stm BBC article on shortest time ever measured]
- [http://www.awi-net.org American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute]
- [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ The World Clock - Time Zones]

Miscellaneous

- [http://www.boost.org/doc/html/date_time.html Boost Date-Time Library -- Powerful C++ Library for date-time manipulation]
- [http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/ Cycles Research Institute]
- [http://www.timeticker.com/ TimeTicker and the time tickers...]
- [http://www.welt-zeit-uhr.de/worldtime.php World Time and Zones]
- [http://www.timetools.co.uk Time Servers] NTP Time Servers provide accurate timing for computers and computer networks.

Century

This page is about centuries as units of time. For other meanings of the term, see Century (disambiguation). For a list of centuries, see Centuries. A century (From the Latin cent, one hundred) is one hundred one hundred consecutive years.
- In all dating systems, centuries are essentially numbered ordinally, as time is a purely relative notion (its physical existence, though indispensable for our understanding of reality, still remains unproven in theory). Thus, the first century of a time frame is "The First Century" and not "Century 0".
- There is considerable disagreement about whether to count the centennial year (i.e. 2000) as the first or last year of a century. This confusion is documented for every centennial year from 1500 onward, and almost certainly arises from the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals and the concept of zero to Western Europe in the twelfth century. The oldest dating systems were regnal, and considered the date as an ordinal, not a cardinal number. Thus, one speaks of the first year of the reign of King so-and-so. Obviously, the century problem does not arise in such systems. Somewhat later, systems arose dating from the founding of a dynasty, city or religion, and these continued ordinal, rather than cardinal, counting. Thus Ab Urbe Condita counts the Year 1 as the founding of Rome; Anno Domini as the first full year of Jesus Christ's life; the Islamic Calendar as the year of the Hejira, so it is also latinized as Anno Hejira. More modern systems of dating, (such as the astronomical calendar, see proleptic Gregorian calendar) begin with a year zero. In these cardinal dating systems, it is perfectly logical to use 0 to 99 as the first century, and to regard 2000 as the first year of the twenty-first century.

1501

Events

- Alexander becomes King of Poland.
- The Safavid kingdom was established in northern Iran.
- Martin Luther enters the University of Erfurt.

Births

- January 16 - Anthony Denny, confidant of Henry VIII of England (died 1559)
- January 17 - Leonhart Fuchs, German physician and botanist (died 1566)
- May 6 - Pope Marcellus II (died 1555)
- July 18 - Isabella of Burgundy, queen of Christian II of Denmark (died 1526)
- September 24 - Gerolamo Cardano, Italian mathematician, physician, astrologer and gambler (died 1567)
- November 25 - Yi Hwang, Korean Confucian scholar (died 1570)
- Girolamo da Carpi, Italian painter (died 1556)
- Dawit II of Ethiopia (died 1540)
- Nikolaus Federmann, German adventurer in Venezuela and Colombia (died 1542)
- Nicholas Heath, archbishop of York and Lord Chancellor (approximate date; died 1578)
- Pedro de Mendoza, Spanish conquistador (died 1537)
- John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, Tudor nobleman and politician (died 1553)
- Garcia de Orta, Portuguese physician
- Hilaire Penet, French composer
- Murakami Yoshikiyo, Japanese nobleman (died 1573)

Marriages

- November 14 - Arthur Tudor and Catherine of Aragon.

Deaths

- September 20 - Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, stepson of Edward IV of England (born 1457)
- Gaspar Corte-Real, Portuguese explorer (born 1450)
- John Doget, English diplomat
- Constantine Lascaris, Greek scholar and grammarian
- Alisher Navoi, a Central Asian poet Category:1501 ko:1501년

16th century in literature

Events

- The Bible is translated into English.

New books

:1501 - The Book of Margery Kempe (posthumous) :1503 - The Thrissill and the Rois - William Dunbar :1505 - The Passtyme of Pleasure and The Temple of Glass - Stephen Hawes :1508 - The Goldyn Targe - William Dunbar :1509 - In Praise of Folly - Erasmus :1512 - Fulgens and Lucrece - Henry Medwall :1513 - First translation of the Aeneid into English language (Scots dialect) by Gavin Douglas :1515 - The New Chronicles of England and France by Robert Fabyan : about 1516 - Utopia by Thomas More :1527 - Historia Scotorum - Hector Boece :1535 - Huon of Bordeaux - John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners :1539 - The Castel of Helth - Sir Thomas Elyot :1540 - Historia Scotorum of Hector Boece, translated into vernacular Scots by John Bellenden at the special request of James V of Scotland :1541 - Baptistes and Jephtha - George Buchanan :1542 - The Union of the Two Noble and Illustrate Famelies of Lancastre & Yorke - Edward Hall :1545 - Toxophilus - Roger Ascham : about 1553 - Gammer Gurton's Needle and Ralph Roister Doister, the first comedies written in the English language :1559 - The Elizabethan version of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England, which remained in use until the mid-17th century and was the first English Prayer Book in America. :1560 - The Geneva Bible - William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, Thomas Sampson :1562
- Bullein's Bulwarke of Defence againste all Sicknes, Sornes, and Woundes - William Bullein
- Gorboduc (play) - Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville
- Jack Juggler (play) - anonymous, sometimes attributed to Nicholas Udall :1563
- Foxe's Book of Martyrs - John Foxe :1577
- The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Irelande - Raphael Holinshed
- The History of Travayle in the West and East Indies - Richard Eden :1578
- A True Discourse of the Late Voyages of Discoverie…under the Conduct of Martin Frobisher - George Best
- Euphues: the Anatomy of Wit - John Lyly
- First Fruits - John Florio :1579
- Honest Excuses - Thomas Lodge
- The Schoole of Abuse - Stephen Gosson :1582
- Divers Voyages - Richard Hakluyt
- Rerum Scoticarum Historia - George Buchanan :1583
- The Anatomy of Abuses - Philip Stubbe :1584
- The Araygnement of Paris - George Peele :1585
- La Galatea - Miguel de Cervantes :1586
- A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia - Thomas Hariot
- Historie of the Reformatioun of Religioun within the Realms of Scotland - John Knox
- The Raigne of Edward III - anonymous, attributed by some to William Shakespeare
- The Arte of English Poesie - attributed to George Puttenham
- Primera parte de la Angélica - Luis Barahona de Soto
- Pappe with an hatchet, alias a figge for my Godsonne - John Lyly :1590
- Arcadia - Sir Philip Sidney (posthumous)
- Rosalynde - Thomas Lodge :1591
- Astrophel and Stella - Sir Philip Sidney (posthumous) :1592
- Diana - Henry Constable
- The Spanish Tragedy (play) - Thomas Kyd
- The Tragedy of Mr Arden of Feversham (play) - anonymous (previously attributed to William Shakespeare)
- Groatsworth of Wit - Robert Greene
- Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets - Gabriel Harvey
- The Shepherd's Garland - Michael Drayton :1593
- Peirs Gaveston - Michael Drayton :1594
- The Battle of Alcazar (play) - George Peele
- Cleopatra (play) - Samuel Daniel
- Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie - Richard Hooker
- The Seamans Secrets - Sir John Davys :1595
- Colin Clouts Come Home Againe - Edmund Spenser
- Poemata - Thomas Campion
- An Apologie for Poetrie - Sir Philip Sidney (posthumous) :1596
- Orchestra, or a Poeme of Dauncing - Sir John Davies
- The Civell Warres of Edward the Second and the Barrons - Michael Drayton
- The Faerie Queene - Edmund Spenser
- The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empyre of Guiana by Sir Walter Raleigh :1597
- Englands Heroicall Epistles - Michael Drayton :1598
- Every Man in his Humour (play) - Ben Jonson
- The Scottish Historie of James the Fourth (play) - Robert Greene
- Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury - Francis Meres
- Politeuphuia (Wits' Commonwealth) - John Bodenham
- Survey of London - John Stow :1599
- Every Man out of his Humour (play) - Ben Jonson
- Hymnes of Astraea (poetry) - Sir John Davies
- Nosce Teipsum (poetry) - Sir John Davies
- The Love of King David and Faire Bethsabe (poetry) - George Peele
- Wits' Theater - John Bodenham

Births

- 1515 - Roger Ascham
- 1547 - Miguel de Cervantes
- 1551 - William Camden
- 1555 - Lancelot Andrewes
- 1558 - Robert Greene
- 1558 - Thomas Kyd
- 1561 - Luís de Góngora y Argote
- 1564 - Christopher Marlowe
- 1564 - William Shakespeare
- 1570 - Robert Aytoun
- 1572 - Ben Jonson
- 1576 - John Marston
- 1577 - Robert Burton
- 1581 - Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft
- 1583 - Philip Massinger
- 1587 - Joost van den Vondel

Deaths

- 1502 - Henry Medwall
- 1513 - Robert Fabyan
- 1552 - Alexander Barclay
- 1563 - John Bale
- 1568 - Roger Ascham
- 1577 - George Gascoigne
- 1592 - Robert Greene
- 1593 - Christopher Marlowe
- 1594 - Thomas Kyd
- 1595 - Luis Barahona de Soto Literature Category:History of literature

Safavids

The Safavids were an Iranian dynasty that ruled from 1501 to 1736, and which established Shi'a Islam as Iran's official religion and united its provinces under a single Iranian sovereignty, thereby reigniting the Persian identity and acting as a bridge to modern Iran.

Origins

The Safavid dynasty had its origins in a long established Sufi order, called the Safaviyeh, which had flourished in Azerbaijan since the early 14th century. Its founder was Sheikh Safi Al-Din (1252–1334), after whom it was named. Sheikh Safi-Al-Din Abul Fath Is'haq Ardabili came from Ardebil, a city in today's Iranian Azerbaijan where his shrine still exists. He was a disciple of the famed Sufi Grand Master Sheikh Zahed Gilani (1216–1301) of Lahijan. Spiritual heir to Sheikh Zahed, Safi Al-Din transformed the inherited Zahediyeh Sufi Order into the Safaviyeh Order. Originally Safaviyeh was a spiritual response to the upheavals and unrest in northwest Iran/eastern Anatolia in the decades following the Mongol invasion. In the fifteenth century, the Safaviyeh gradually gained political and military clout in the power vacuum precipitated by the decline of the Timurid dynasty. After becoming the Safaviyeh leader in 1447, Junayd transformed it into a revolutionary Shi'ite movement with the goal of seizing power in Iran.

Rise of the Safavid state

Junayd, Iran.]]

Beginnings

- During the 15th century, the Ottomans expanded across Anatolia and centralized control by prosecuting Shi'ism. They outlawed it at the turn of the century. In 1501, various disaffected militia from Azerbaijan and eastern Anatolia collectively called the Kizilbash (Azeri for "Red Heads" due to their red headgear) united with the Ardebil Safaviyeh to capture Tabriz from the then ruling Sunni Turkoman alliance known as Ak Koyunlu (the White Sheep Emirate) under Alwand's leadership. The Safiviyeh was headed by a fifteen-year old, Ismail I. He was Junayd's grandson and a descendant, on his father's side of Sheikh Safi Al-Din, and, on his mother's side, the grandson of Uzun Hasan, the founder of the Ak Koyunlu. To establish political provenance, the Safavid rulers claimed to be descended from Imam Ali and his wife Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, through the seventh Imam Musa al-Kazim. To further legitimize his power, Ismail I also added claims of royal Sassanian heritage after becoming Shah. With the capture of Tabriz, the Safavid dynasty began. In May 1501, Ismail I declared Tabriz his capital and himself shah of Azerbaijan. Ismail I continued to expand his base in northwestern Iran. He was declared shah of Iran in 1502. Throughout the rest of the decade Ismail I fended off attacks from the Ottomans, stamped out the remnants of the Ak Koyunlu and continued to expand his territory — Hamadan in 1503, Shiraz and Kerman in 1504, Najaf and Karbala in 1507, Van in 1508, Baghdad in 1509, Khorasan and Herat in 1510. By 1511 the Uzbeks in the north-east were driven across the Oxus River where they captured Samarkand establishing the Shaibanid dynasty, and from which they would continue to attack the Safavids. During his reign, the official language at the royal court was Azeri. In the meantime, the navy-less Safavids lost the island of Hormuz to the Portuguese in 1507. In 1514, the Ottoman sultan Selim I invaded western Armenia causing the under-prepared Safavid army to retreat. The Safavids were armed with swords and bows while the Ottomans had muskets and artillery. The Ottomans pushed further and on August 23, 1514 managed to engage the Safavids in the Battle of Chaldiran west of Tabriz. The Safavids were defeated and, as the Ottoman force moved on Tabriz, engaged in scorched-earth combat. Tabriz was taken but the Ottoman army refused to follow the Safavids into the Persian highlands and by winter retreated from Tabriz. This warfare pattern repeated itself under Shah Tahmasp I and Sultan Suleiman I.

Establishment of Shi'ism as the state religion

Ismail I embraced Shi'a Islam, which he made mandatory for the whole nation upon penalty of death. Ismail forced conversion of the local population to Shi'ism. The Sunni ulama, the religious authority, were either killed or exiled. Ismail brought in Shi'a religious leaders, granted them land and money in return for loyalty — in effect making them a religious aristocracy and an extension of the government. Despite Safavid's origins, even unofficial Sufi groups were prohibited. This was the first time since the fall of the Fatimid Caliphate in 1171 that this sect had attained such high levels of power in the Islamic world. In the following centuries, this religious schism would both cement both Iran's internal cohesion and nationalistic separateness and provoke attacks by its Sunni neighbors. Iran became a feudal theocracy: there was no separation of religion and state; the shah was held to be divinely ordained head of both. The Qizilbashi chiefs were assigned the position of wakil, offices in charge of the provincial administrative. Initially, the Safavids had only indirect control over the provinces, however throughout the sixteenth century the Qizilbash solidified their dominion over the provinces and vied with the shah for power. The Qizilbashi tribes were essential to the military of Iran and during weak shahs, the wakils were able to elbow more influence and participate in court intrigues (assassinating Shah Ismail II for example). Constant wars with the Ottomans made Shah Tahmasp I move the capital from Tabriz, which was chronically being captured by the Ottoman troops, into the interior city of Qazvin in 1548. Later, Shah Abbas I moved the capital even deeper into central Iranian city of Isfahan, building a new city next to the ancient Persian one. From this time the state began to take on a more Persian character. The Safavids ultimately succeeded in establishing a new Persian national monarchy.

Shah Abbas

The greatest of the Safavid monarchs, Shah Abbas I (1587–1629) came to power in 1587 after surviving Qizilbashi court intrigues and murders. He recognized the ineffectualness of his army which was consistently being defeated by the Ottomans who had captured Georgia and Armenia and by Uzbeks who had captured Mashhad and Sistan in the east. First he sued for peace in 1590 with the Ottomans giving away territory in the north-west. Then an English general, Robert Sherley, helped Abbas I to reorganize the Shah's soldiers into an officer-paid and well-trained standing army similar to a European model (which the Ottomans had already adopted). He wholeheartedly adopted the use of gunpowder. The army divisions were: ghulams ('crown servants or slaves' usually conscripted from Armenian, Georgian and Circassian lands), tofongchis (musketeers), and topchis (artillerymen). Abbas I first fought the Uzbeks, recapturing Herat and Mashhad in 1598. Then he turned against the Ottomans recapturing Baghdad, eastern Iraq and the Caucasian provinces by 1622. He also used his new force to dislodge the Portuguese from Bahrain (1602) and, with English navy, from Hormuz (1622) in the Persian Gulf (a vital link in Portuguese trade with India). He expanded commercial links with the English East India Company and the Dutch East India Company. Thus Abbas I was able to break the dependence on the Qizilbash for military might and centralize control. The Ottoman Turks and Safavids fought over the fertile plains of Iraq for more than 150 years. The capture of Baghdad by Ismail I in 1509 was only followed by its loss to the Ottoman sultan Suleiman I in 1534. After subsequent campaigns, the Safavids recaptured Baghdad in 1623 yet lost it again to Murad IV in 1638. Henceforth a treaty, signed in Qasr-e Shirin, was established delineating a border between Iran and Turkey in 1639, a border which still stands in northwest Iran/southeast Turkey. The more than century of tug-of-war accentuated the Sunni and Shi'a rift in Iraq. In 1609-1610, a long battle broke out between Kurds and Safavid Empire. It took place around a fortress called "Dimdim" located in Beradost region around Lake Urmia in north western Iran. In 1609, the ruined structure was rebuilt by "Emîr Xan Lepzêrîn" (Golden Hand Khan), ruler of Beradost, who sought to maintain the independence of his expanding principality in the face of both Ottoman and Safavid penetration into the region. Rebuilding of Dimdim was considered a move toward independence that could threaten Safavid power in the northwest. Many Kurds, including the rulers of Mukriyan (Mahabad), rallied around Amir Khan. After a long and bloody siege led by the Safavid grand vizier Hatem Beg, which lasted from November 1609 to the summer of 1610, Dimdim was captured. Shah Abbas ordered a general massacre in Beradost and Mukriyan(Mahabad) (Reported by Eskandar Beg Monshi, Safavid Historian (1557-1642) in the Book "Alam Ara Abbasi") and resettled the Turkish Afshar tribe in the region while deporting many Kurdish tribes to Khorasan. (see [http://www.iranica.com/articles/v7/v7f4/v7f446.html] and [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0891582967/002-2409634-9909608?v=glance]). Also see " O. Dzh. Dzhalilov, Kurdski geroicheski epos Zlatoruki Khan" (The Kurdish heroic epic Gold-hand Khan), Moscow, 1967. Nowadays There is a community of nearly 1.7 million people who are descendants of the tribes deported from Kurdistan to Khurasan (Northeastern Iran) by the Safavids. For a map of these areas see [http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/commonwealth/commonwealth_islamic_groups.jpg]. Due to his obsessive fear of assassination, Shah Abbas either put to death or blinded any member of his family who aroused his suspicion. In this way one of his sons was executed and two blinded. Since two other sons had predeceased him, the result was personal tragedy for Shah Abbas. When he died on 19 January 1629, he had no son capable of succeeding him. ( see Encyclopaedia Iranica at [http://www.iranica.com] under "Abbas I the Great", page 75). The beginning of the 17th century saw the power of the Qizilbash decline, the original militia that had helped Ismail I capture Tabriz and which over the century had insinuated themselves as entitled bureaucrats in the administration. Power was shifting to a new class of merchants, many of them ethnic Armenians, Georgians and Indians. At its zenith, during the long reign of Shah Abbas I the empire's reach comprised Iran, Iraq, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. ♥

Turkmens vs. Persians in the Safavid Period

A major problem faced by Ismail I after the establishment of the Safavid state was how to bridge the gap between the two major ethnic groups in that state: the Qezelbash Turkmens, the "men of the sword" of classical Islamic society whose military prowess had brought him to power, and the Persian elements, the "men of the pen," who filled the ranks of the bureaucracy and the religious establishment in the Safavid state as they had done for centuries under previous rulers of Persia, be they Arabs, Turks, Mongols, or Turkmens. As Minorsky put it, friction between these two groups was inevitable, because the Qezelbash "were no party to the national Persian tradition". Between 1508 and 1524, the year of Ismail's death, the shah appointed five successive Persians to the office of wakil.When the second Persian "wakil" was placed in command of a Safavid army in Transoxiana, the Qezelbash, considering it a dishonor to be obliged to serve under him, deserted him on the battlefield with the result that he was slain. The fourth wakil was murdered by the Qezelbash, and the fifth was put to death by them.(see [http://www.iranica.com/articles/v8f6/v8f665.html])

Economy

What fueled the growth of Safavid economy was Iran's position between the burgeoning civilizations of Europe to its west and India and Islamic Central Asia to its east and north. The Silk Road which led through northern Iran to India revived in the 16th century. Abbas I also supported direct trade with Europe, particularly England and The Netherlands which sought Iranian carpets, silk and textiles. Other exports were horses, goat hair, pearls and an inedible bitter almond hadam-talka used as specie in India. The main imports were specie, textiles (woolens from Europe, cottons from Gujarat), spices, metals, coffee and sugar.

Culture

Culture flourished under Safavid patronage. Shah Ismail I himself wrote poems in Azeri, as well as in Persian and Arabic, while Shah Tahmasp was a painter. Shah Abbas recognized the commercial benefit of promoting the arts - artisan products provided much of Iran's foreign trade. In this period, handicrafts such as tilemaking, pottery and textiles developed and great advances were made in miniature painting, bookbinding, decoration and calligraphy. In the sixteenth century, carpet weaving evolved from a nomadic and peasant craft to a well-executed industry with specialization of design and manufacturing. Tabriz was the center of this industry. The carpets of Ardebil were commissioned to commemorate the Safavid dynasty. The elegantly baroque yet famously misnamed 'Polonaise' carpets were made in Iran during the seventeenth century. Using traditional forms and materials, Reza Abbasi (1565–1635) introduced new subjects to Persian painting — semi-nude women, youth, lovers. His painting and calligraphic style influenced Iranian artists for much of the Safavid period, which came to be known as the Isfahan school. Increased contact with distant cultures in the 17th century, especially Europe, provided a boost of inspiration to Iranian artists who adopted modeling, foreshortening, spatial recession, and the medium of oil painting (Shah Abbas II sent Zaman to study in Rome). The epic Shahnameh (Book of Kings), a stellar example of manuscript illumination and calligraphy, was made during Shah Tahmasp's reign. Another manuscript is the Khamsa by Nezami executed 1539-43 by Aqa Mirak and his school in Isfahan. Isfahan bears the most prominent samples of the Safavid architecture, all constructed in the years after Shah Abbas I permanently moved the capital there in 1598: the Imperial Mosque, Masjid-e Shah, completed in 1630, the Imami Mosque,Masjid-e Imami, the Lutfullah Mosque and the Royal Palace. Poetry stagnated under the Safavids; the great medieval ghazal form languished in over-the-top lyricism. Poetry lacked the royal patronage of other arts and was hemmed in by religious prescriptions. One of the most renowned Muslim philosophers, Mulla Sadra, lived during Shah Abbas I's reign and wrote the Asfar, a meditation on what he called 'metaphilosophy' which brought to a synthesis the philosophical mysticism of Sufism, the theology of Shi'ism, and the Peripatetic and Illuminationist philosophies of Avicenna and al-Suhrawardi. Iskander Beg Monshi’s History of Shah Abbas the Great written a few years after its subject's death, achieved a nuanced depth of history and character.

Decline of the Safavid state

Iskander Beg Monshi’s, Iran.]] In addition to fighting its perennial enemies, the Ottomans and Uzbeks, as the 17th century progressed Iran had to contend with the rise of two more neighbors. Russian Muscovy in the previous century had deposed two western Asian khanates of the Golden Horde and expanded its influence into the Caucasus Mountains and Central Asia. In the east, the Mughal dynasty of India had expanded into Afghanistan at the expense of Iranian control, taking Kandahar and Herat. Furthermore by the 17th century, trade routes between East and West had shifted away from Iran, causing a loss of commerce and trade. Moreover, Shah Abbas's conversion to a ghulam-based military, though expedient in the short term, had, over the course of a century, weakened the country's strength by requiring heavy taxation and control over the provinces. However, during the second half of the 17th century, Safavid Iran and the Siamese kingdom of Ayutthaya established close diplomatic and economic contacts (see Christoph Marcinkowski). Except for Shah Abbas II, the Safavid rulers after Abbas I were ineffectual. The end of his reign, 1666, marked the beginning of the end of the Safavid dynasty. Despite falling revenues and military threats, later shahs had lavish lifestyles. Suleiman I is said to have spent eight years straight in his harem; Shah Soltan Hosein drank without end. The shahs imposed heavy taxes that discouraged investment and encouraged corruption among officials. The country was repeatedly raided on its frontiers — Kerman by Baluchi tribesmen in 1698, Khorasan by Afghans in 1717, constantly in Mesopotamia by peninsula Arabs. Shah Soltan Hosein tried to forcibly convert his Afghan subjects in eastern Iran from Sunni to Shi'a Islam. In response, a Ghilzai Pashtun chieftain named Mir Wais Khan began a rebellion against the Georgian governor, Gorgin Khan, of Kandahar and defeated a Safavid army. Later, in 1722 an Afghan army led by Mir Wais' son Mahmud marched across eastern Iran, besieged, and sacked Isfahan and proclaimed Mahmud 'Shah' of Persia (see the Hotaki dynasty). The Afghans rode roughshod over their conquered territory for a dozen years but were prevented from making further gains by Nadir Shah Afshar, a former slave who had risen to military leadership within the Afshar Turkoman tribe in Khorasan, a vassal state of the Safavids. He wrestled back control over Iran from the Afghans, and proceeded to go on an ambitious military spree, conquering as far as east as Delhi but not fortifying his Persian base and exhausting his army's strength. He had effective control under Shah Tahmasp II and then ruled as regent of the infant Abbas III until 1736 when he had himself crowned shah. Immediately after Nadir Shah's assassination in 1747, the Safavids were re-appointed as shahs of Iran in order to lend legitimacy to the nascent Zand dynasty. However the brief puppet regime of Ismail III ended in 1760 when Karim Khan felt strong enough take nominal power of the country as well and officially end the Safavid dynasty.

Safavid Shahs of Iran

Karim Khan
- Ismail I 1501–1524
- Tahmasp I 1524–1576
- Ismail II 1576–1578
- Mohammed Khodabanda 1578–1587
- Abbas I 1587–1629
- Safi 1629–1642
- Abbas II 1642–1667
- Suleiman I 1667–1694
- Soltan Hoseyn I 1694–1722
- Tahmasp II 1722–1732
- Abbas III 1732–1736
- Suleiman II 1749–1750
- Ismail III 1750–1760

External links

- [http://www.iranica.com Encyclopedia Iranica]
- [http://www.iranchamber.com/history/safavids/safavids.php History of the Safavids from Iran Chamber]
- [http://www.kessler-web.co.uk/History/KingListsMiddEast/EasternPersia.htm List of Persian Shahs]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/safavid/index.shtml BBC History of Religion]
- [http://www.iranian.ws/7000-6.htm Iranian Culture and history Site]
- [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/safa/hd_safa.htm Artistic and cultural history of the Safavids from the Metropolitan Museum of Art]
- [http://www.art-arena.com/safavidart.htm History of Safavid Art] Category:Persian history Category:History of Iran Category:Royal families ja:サファヴィー朝

Iran

Iran (Persian: ايران) is a Middle Eastern country located in Southwest Asia bordering Armenia, Azerbaijan including its Nakhichevan exclave and Turkmenistan to the north, Pakistan and Afghanistan to the east, Turkey and Iraq to the west. Until 1935 the country was referred to in the West as Persia. In 1959, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi announced that both terms could be used. In 1979, the Iranian revolution established a theocratic Islamic Republic, changing the country's official name to the Islamic Republic of Iran (جمهوری اسلامی ايران). Dispute exists as to the country's current official name.

History

Sometime around 1500 to 1000 BC, the Iranian nomads of Indo-European stock emigrated to the Iranian plateau possibly from Central Asia. In 8th century BC, the first Iranian government was established under the Median dynasty and under the following dynasty, the Achaemenids, Iranians built the first world empire. Their empire emerged in the 6th century BC under Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, who called himself "King of Iran and beyond". Indeed, the name Persia is derived from Persis, the ancient Greek name for the empire. The Achaemenid dynasty was followed by the Parthian and Sassanid dynasties as Persia's greatest pre-Islamic empires. Alexander the Great first conquered Persia in 331 BC, followed by Islam's Arab forces in the 7th century, and Genghis Khan, and lastly, Tamerlane who conquered a significant portion of Persia in the middle ages. middle ages The 9th century saw the rise of the Saffarids and then other lines of kings or shahs. During the 19th century Persia came under increasing pressure from both Russia and the United Kingdom, leading to a process of modernization that continued into the 20th century. By the 20th century Iranians were longing for a change and thus followed the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905/1911. In 1953 Iran's elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, was removed from power in a complex plot orchestrated by British and US intelligence agencies (dubbed "Operation Ajax"). Many scholars suspect that this ouster was motivated by British-US opposition to Mosaddeq's attempt to nationalize Iran's oil. Following Mosaddeq's fall, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Iran's monarch) grew increasingly dictatorial. With strong support from the USA and the UK, the Shah further modernized Iranian industry but crushed civil liberties. His autocratic rule, including systematic torture and other human rights violations, led to the Iranian revolution and overthrow of his regime in 1979. After more than a year of political struggle between a variety of different groups, an Islamic republic was established under the Ayatollah Khomeini by a revolution. The new theocratic political system instituted some conservative Islamic reforms and engaged in an anti-Western course. In particular Iran distanced itself from the United States due to the American involvement in the 1953 coup, which supplanted an elected government with the Shah's repressive regime. It also declared its refusal to recognize the existence of Israel as a state. The new government inspired various groups considered by a large part of the Western World to be fundamentalist. As a consequence some countries, currently led by the USA, consider Iran to be a hostile power. In 1980 Iran was attacked by neighbouring Iraq and the destructive Iran-Iraq War continued until 1988. The struggle between reformists and conservatives over the future of the country continues today through electoral politics and was a central Western focus in the 2005 Elections where Conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad triumphed.

Politics

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Iran is a constitutional Islamic Republic, whose political system is laid out in the 1979 constitution. Iran's makeup has several intricately connected governing bodies, some of which are democratically elected and some of which are appointed by religious leaders. The concept of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) plays an influential role in the governmental structure. The Supreme Leader of Iran is responsible for the delineation and supervision of "the general policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran." In the absence of a single leader, a council of religious leaders is appointed. The Supreme Leader is commander-in-chief of the armed forces; he alone can declare war. He has the power to appoint and dismiss the leaders of the judiciary, the state radio and television networks, and the supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He also appoints six of the twelve members of the Council of Guardians. He, or the council of religious leaders, are elected by the Assembly of Experts, on the basis of their qualifications and the high popular esteem in which they are held. Twelve jurists comprise the Council of Guardians, six of whom are appointed by the Supreme Leader. The head of the judiciary recommends the remaining six, which are officially appointed by Parliament. The Council of Guardians is vested with the authority to interpret the constitution and determines if the laws passed by Parliament are in line with sharia (Islamic law) and the Iranian constitution; if a law passed by Parliament is deemed incompatible, it is referred back to Parliament for revision. After the office of Leadership, the President of Iran is the highest official in the country. His is responsibile for implementing the Constitution and acting as the head of the executive, except in matters directly concerned with the Leadership. All presidential candidates must be approved by the Council of Guardians prior to running, and are elected to a 4-year term. After his election, the president appoints and supervises the 21-member Council of Ministers (who must then be confirmed by Parliament), coordinates government decisions, and selects government policies to be placed before the parliament. Eight vice presidents serve under the president. The unicameral Iranian parliament consists of 290 members elected to a 4-year term (approved by the Council of Guardians before running). It drafts legislation, ratifies international treaties, and approves the country's budget. All legislation from the assembly must be reviewed by the Council of Guardians. The Assembly of Experts, which meets for one week every year, consists of 86 "virtuous and learned" clerics elected by the public to eight-year terms. Like presidential and parliamentary elections, the Council of Guardians determines eligibility to run for a seat in this assembly. The head of the judiciary is appointed by the Supreme Leader, who in turn appoints the head of the Supreme Court and the chief public prosecutor. Public courts deal with civil and criminal cases. "Revolutionary" courts try certain categories of offenses, including crimes considered against national security or the republic and narcotics smuggling. Decisions rendered in these courts are final and cannot be appealed. The Special Clerical Court, which functions independently of the regular judicial framework and is accountable only to the Supreme Leader, handles crimes allegedly committed by clerics, although it has also taken on cases involving lay people.

Administrative divisions

Provinces

Iran consists of 30 provinces: Provinces are governed from a local center, mostly the largest local city. Provincial authority is headed by a governor (استاندار: ostāndār), who is installed by the Minister of Interior subject to approval of the cabinet. Until 2004 there were 28 provinces. A law passed that year split the province of Khorasan into three new provinces: North Khorasan, Razavi Khorasan, and South Khorasan.

Major cities

Iran's top four largest cities are: Image:Meydoon sadeghiyeh.jpg|Tehran: 8,601,473 (2005 pop.) Image:Nadershahtomb.jpg|Mashad: 2,307,177 (2005 pop.) Image:IMG 0414 resize.jpg|Isfahan: 1,547,164 (2005 pop.) Image:Poets tomb tabriz.jpg|Tabriz: 1,424,641 (2005 pop.) See also: List of cities in Iran.

Geography

List of cities in Iran Iran borders Azerbaijan (length of border: 432 km / 268 mi ) and Armenia (35 km / 22mi) to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan (992 km / 616 mi) to the northeast, Pakistan (909 km / 565 mi) and Afghanistan (936 km / 582 mi) to the east, Turkey (499 km / 310 mi) and Iraq (1,458 km / 906 mi) to the west, and finally the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the south. Iran's total land mass is 1,648,000 km² / ≈636,300 mi² (Land: 1,636,000 km² / ≈631,663 mi², Water: 12,000 km² / ≈4,633 mi²). Iran's landscape is dominated by rugged mountain ranges that separate various basins or plateaus from one another. The populous western part is the most mountainous, with ranges such as the Zagros and Alborz Mountains, the latter of which also contains Iran's highest point, the Damavand at 5,671 m (18,606 ft). The eastern half consists mostly of uninhabited desert basins with the occasional salt lake. The only large plains are found along the coast of the Caspian Sea and at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, where Iran borders on the mouth of the Arvand river (Shatt al-Arab). Smaller, discontinuous plains are found along the remaining coast of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman. The Iranian climate

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1501

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Safavids

Origins

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Establishment of Shi'ism as the state religion

Shah Abbas

Turkmens vs. Persians in the Safavid Period

Economy

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Decline of the Safavid state

Safavid Shahs of Iran

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