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Battle Of Sitka
The Battle of Sitka (russian: Сражение при Ситке; 1804) was the last major armed conflict between Russians and Alaska Natives, and was initiated in response to the destruction of a Russian trading post two years before. The primary combatant groups were the Kiks.ádi ("Ones of ''Kíks''", Frog/Raven) Clan of Sheetʼká Xʼáatʼi ( Baranof Island) of the Tlingit nation and agents of the Russian-American Company assisted by the Imperial Russian Navy. Previous colonization and resistance Members of the Kiks.ádi of the indigenous Tlingit people had occupied portions of the Alaska Panhandle, including ''Sheetʼká Xʼáat'i'' (present-day Baranof Island), for some 11,000 years. Alexandr Baranov (Chief Manager of the Russian-American Company) first visited the island aboard the ''Ekaterina'' in 1795 while searching for new sea otter hunting grounds. Baranov paid the Tlingit a sum for the rights to the land in order to prevent "interlopers" from conducting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Russian Colonization Of The Americas
The Russian colonization of North America covers the period from 1732 to 1867, when the Russian Empire laid claim to northern Pacific Coast territories in the Americas. Russian colonial possessions in the Americas are collectively known as Russian America. Russian expansion eastward began in 1552, and in 1639 Russian explorers reached the Pacific Ocean. In 1725, Emperor Peter the Great ordered navigator Vitus Bering to explore the North Pacific for potential colonization. The Russians were primarily interested in the abundance of fur-bearing mammals on Alaska's coast, as stocks had been depleted by over hunting in Siberia. Bering's first voyage was foiled by thick fog and ice, but in 1741 a second voyage by Bering and Aleksei Chirikov made sight of the North American mainland. Russian '' promyshlenniki'' (trappers and hunters) quickly developed the maritime fur trade, which instigated several conflicts between the Aleuts and Russians in the 1760s. The fur trade proved to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Galley (ship)
A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be used in favorable winds, but human effort was always the primary method of propulsion. This allowed galleys to navigate independently of winds and currents. The galley originated among the seafaring civilizations around the Mediterranean Sea in the late second millennium BC and remained in use in various forms until the early 19th century in warfare, trade, and piracy. Galleys were the warships used by the early Mediterranean naval powers, including the Greeks, Illyrians, Phoenicians, and Romans. They remained the dominant types of vessels used for war and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea until the last decades of the 16th century. As warships, galleys carried various types of weapons throughout their long existence, including ram ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the term—a ruler with the same rank as a Roman emperor, holding it by the approval of another emperor or a supreme ecclesiastical official (the Pope or the Ecumenical Patriarch)—but was usually considered by western Europeans to be equivalent to "king". It lends its name to a system of government, tsarist autocracy or tsarism. "Tsar" and its variants were the official titles of the following states: * Bulgarian Empire ( First Bulgarian Empire in 681–1018, Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185–1396), and also used in Tsardom of Bulgaria, in 1908–1946 * Serbian Empire, in 1346–1371 * Tsardom of Russia, in 1547–1721 (replaced in 1721 by '' imperator'' in Russian Empire, but still remaining in use, also officially in relation to sever ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tlingit K'alyaan Totem Pole August 2005
The Tlingit ( or ; also spelled Tlinkit) are indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America. Their language is the Tlingit language (natively , pronounced ),"Lingít Yoo X'atángi: The Tlingit Language." ''Sealaska Heritage Institute.'' (retrieved 3 December 2009) in which the name means 'People of the Tides'.Pritzker, 208 The Russian name ' (, from a Sugpiaq-Alutiiq term ' for the worn by women) or the related German name ' may be encountered referring to the people in older historical literature, such as |
Watchtower
A watchtower or watch tower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may observe the surrounding area. In some cases, non-military towers, such as religious towers, may also be used as watchtowers. History Military watchtowers The Romans built numerous towers as part of a system of communications, one example being the towers along Hadrian's Wall in Britain. Romans built many lighthouses, such as the Tower of Hercules in northern Spain, which survives to this day as a working building, and the equally famous lighthouse at Dover Castle, which survives to about half its original height as a ruin. In medieval Europe, many castles and manor houses, or similar fortified buildings, were equipped with watchtowers. In some of the manor houses of wes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stockade
A stockade is an enclosure of palisades and tall walls, made of logs placed side by side vertically, with the tops sharpened as a defensive wall. Etymology ''Stockade'' is derived from the French word ''estocade''. The French word was derived from the Spanish word ''estacada''. As a frontier outpost It was used as an outpost because it provided cover and was safe to look at things through. As a security fence The troops or settlers would build a stockade by clearing a space of woodland and using the trees whole or chopped in half, with one end sharpened on each. They would dig a narrow trench around the area, and stand the sharpened logs side-by-side inside it, encircling the perimeter. Sometimes they would add additional defence by placing sharpened sticks in a shallow secondary trench outside the stockade. In colder climates sometimes the stockade received a coating of clay or mud that would make the crude wall wind-proof. Builders could also place stones or thick mud lay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barracks
Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are usually permanent buildings for military accommodation. The word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes, and the plural form often refers to a single structure and may be singular in construction. The main object of barracks is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training, and ''esprit de corps''. They have been called "discipline factories for soldiers". Like industrial factories, some are considered to be shoddy or dull buildings, although others are known for their magnificent architecture such as Collins Barracks in Dublin and others in Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Vienna, or London. From the rough barracks of 19th-century conscript armies, filled with hazing and illness and ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Redoubt Saint Michael
The Redoubt St. Archangel Michael Site, also known as the Old Sitka Site and now in Old Sitka State Historical Park, is a National Historic Landmark near Sitka, Alaska. Now of archaeological interest, the site, about north of Sitka at the end of Halibut Point Road, was the site of the early Russian-American Company settlement known as Redoubt St. Archangel Michael (russian: форт Архангела Михаила, r "Fort Arkhangela Mikhaila"). It was the first non-Native settlement on Baranof Island. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1962, and was made a state park in 1966. History In 1779, Alexander Baranov, a leader of the Russian-American Company, arrived near the site of modern Sitka, and negotiated with the local Tlingit people for a site on which the company could establish an outpost. Although he would have preferred what is now called Castle Hill in Sitka, he was granted this site on Starrigavan Bay. It was not until 1799 that the company establ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle Hill (Sitka, Alaska)
Castle Hill ( tli, Noow Tlein, russian: Замковый холм) also known as the American Flag-Raising Site and now as the Baranof Castle State Historic Site, is a National Historic Landmark and state park in Sitka, Alaska. The hill, providing a commanding view over the city, is the historical site of Tlingit and Russian forts, and the location where Russian Alaska was formally handed over to the United States in 1867. It is also where the 49-star United States flag was first flown after Alaska became a state in 1959. Description Castle Hill is a rock outcrop, about in height. It occupies a prominent position on the edge of Sitka Harbor, although it is now set back from the sea by several hundred feet due to fill added around its southern and western faces in 1968. The summit area is a generally flat area about in length and in width. The south face of the hill is sheer, while the eastern face presents a more gradual slope. An accessible trail, with interpretive pane ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merchant Kings
''Merchant Kings: When Companies Ruled the World, 1600 to 1900'' is a 2009 nonfiction popular history book by Stephen R. Bown, which discusses what Bown dubs the "age of heroic commerce" through biographical profiles of six of the leading "merchant kings" of the great chartered companies which held colonial trade monopolies: Jan Pieterszoon Coen of the Dutch East India Company, Pieter Stuyvesant of the Dutch West India Company, Robert Clive of the English East India Company, Alexander Baranov of the Russian American Company, George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company, and Cecil John Rhodes of the British South Africa Company. Each of these companies blurred the line between corporation and state, taking on certain roles of civil government over its employees, customers, and native peoples and settlers within their domains. The men who ran them operated with impunity, far from the oversight and control of their home countries' governments and their companies' directors (many of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aleut People
The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the US state of Alaska and the Russian administrative division of Kamchatka Krai. Etymology In the Aleut language they are known by the endonyms Unangan (eastern dialect) and Unangas (western dialect), both of which mean "people". The Russian term "Aleut" was a general term used for both the native population of the Aleutian Islands and their neighbors to the east in the Kodiak Archipelago, who were also referred to as "Pacific Eskimos". Language Aleut people speak Unangam Tunuu, the Aleut language, as well as English and Russian in the United States and Russia respectively. An estimated 150 people in the United States and five people in Russia speak Aleut. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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