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Kern (soldier)
A kern was a Gaelic warrior, specifically a light infantryman, in Ireland in the Middle Ages. Etymology The word ''kern'' is an anglicisation of the Middle Irish word ''ceithern'' or ''ceithrenn'' meaning a collection of persons, particularly fighting men. An individual member is a ''ceithernach''. The word may derive from a conjectural proto-Celtic word *''ketern''ā, ultimately from an Indo-European root meaning a chain. Kern was adopted into English as a term for a Gaelic soldier in medieval Ireland and as '' cateran'', meaning 'Highland marauder', 'bandit'. The term ''ceithernach'' is also used in modern Irish for a chess pawn. Military roles Kerns notably accompanied bands of the mercenary gallowglasses as their light infantry forces, where the gallowglass filled the need for heavy infantry. This two-tier "army" structure though should not be taken to reflect earlier Irish armies prior to the Norman invasions, as there were more locally trained soldiers filling va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Image Of Irelande - Plate02
''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the most frequently used word in the English language; studies and analyses of texts have found it to account for seven percent of all printed English-language words. It is derived from gendered articles in Old English which combined in Middle English and now has a single form used with nouns of any gender. The word can be used with both singular and plural nouns, and with a noun that starts with any letter. This is different from many other languages, which have different forms of the definite article for different genders or numbers. Pronunciation In most dialects, "the" is pronounced as (with the voiced dental fricative followed by a schwa) when followed by a consonant sound, and as (homophone of the archaic pronoun ''thee' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Militia
A militia ( ) is a military or paramilitary force that comprises civilian members, as opposed to a professional standing army of regular, full-time military personnel. Militias may be raised in times of need to support regular troops or serve as a pool of available manpower for regular forces to draw from. When acting independently, militias are generally unable to hold ground against regular forces. Militias commonly support regular troops by skirmishing, holding fortifications, or conducting irregular warfare, instead of undertaking offensive campaigns by themselves. However, militias may also engage in defense activities to protect a community, its territory, property, and laws. For example, naval militias may comprise fishermen and other civilians which are organized and sanctioned by a state to enforce its maritime boundaries. Beginning in the late 20th century, some militias (in particular officially recognized and sanctioned militias of a government) act as profe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fianna
''Fianna'' ( , ; singular ''Fian''; ) were small warrior-hunter bands in Gaelic Ireland during the Iron Age and early Middle Ages. A ''fian'' was made up of freeborn young men, often from the Gaelic nobility of Ireland, "who had left fosterage but had not yet inherited the property needed to settle down as full landowning members of the ''túath''". For most of the year they lived in the wild, hunting, cattle raiding other Irish clans, training, and fighting as mercenaries. Scholars believe the ''fian'' was a rite of passage into manhood, and have linked ''fianna'' with similar young warrior bands in other early European cultures. They are featured in a body of Irish legends known as the 'Fianna Cycle' or 'Fenian Cycle', which focuses on the adventures and heroic deeds of the ''fian'' leader Fionn mac Cumhaill and his band. In later tales, the ''fianna'' are more often depicted as household troops of the High Kings. The Fenian Brotherhood of the 19th-century and the '' F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Macbeth
''The Tragedy of Macbeth'', often shortened to ''Macbeth'' (), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging psychological effects of political ambitions and power. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Scholars believe ''Macbeth'', of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of King James I, contains the most allusions to James, patron of Shakespeare's acting company. In the play, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to violence by his wife, Macbeth murders the king and takes the Scottish throne for himself. Then, racked with guilt and paranoia, he commits further violent murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, soon becoming a tyrannical ruler. The bloo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry VI, Part 2
''Henry VI, Part 2'' (1591) is a Shakespearean history play about King Henry VI of England's inability to quell the bickering of his noblemen, the death of his trusted advisor Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and the political rise of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York; it culminates with the First Battle of St Albans (1455), the initial battle of the Wars of the Roses, which were civil wars between the House of Lancaster and the House of York. In the early historical narrative of '' Henry VI, Part 1'' (1591) Shakespeare dealt with the low morale consequent to the loss of England's French territories (1429–1453) during the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) and the political machinations that precipitated the Wars of the Roses (1455–1487). In the concluding history of ''Henry VI, Part 3'' (1591), the English playwright William Shakespeare deals with the fraternal horrors of civil war amongst Englishmen. In English literature, '' The Tragedy of Richard III'' (1594) is included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dart (missile)
Darts are airborne ranged weapons. They are designed to fly such that a sharp, often weighted point will strike first. They can be distinguished from javelins by the presence of fletching (feathers on the tail) and a shaft that is shorter or more flexible. Darts can be propelled by hand or with the aid of a hand-held implement such as a blowgun. They can be distinguished from arrows because they are not used with a Bow and arrow, bow. Darts have been used since pre-history. The plumbatae were lead-weighted darts thrown by infantrymen in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Darts can be propelled by a number of means. The atlatl uses leverage to increase the velocity of the dart, the kestros (weapon), kestros increases the range of propelled darts using a sling, and the exhalation of a person's breath through a blowgun propels small stone points or poisoned needles with pneumatic force. In the modern era, darts have been used for recreation in lawn darts and the game of darts. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Javelin
A javelin is a light spear designed primarily to be thrown, historically as a ranged weapon. Today, the javelin is predominantly used for sporting purposes such as the javelin throw. The javelin is nearly always thrown by hand, unlike the sling (weapon), sling, bow and arrow, bow, and crossbow, which launch projectiles with the aid of a hand-held mechanism. However, devices do exist to assist the javelin thrower in achieving greater distances, such as spear-throwers or the amentum. A warrior or soldier armed primarily with one or more javelins is a javelineer. The word javelin comes from Middle English and it derives from Old French ''javelin'', a diminutive of ''javelot'', which meant spear. The word ''javelot'' probably originated from one of the Celtic languages. Prehistory There is archaeological evidence that javelins and throwing sticks were already in use by the last phase of the Lower Paleolithic. Seven spear-like objects were found in a coal mine in the city of Schön ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bow And Arrow
The bow and arrow is a ranged weapon system consisting of an elasticity (physics), elastic launching device (bow) and long-shafted projectiles (arrows). Humans used bows and arrows for hunting and aggression long before recorded history, and the practice was common to many prehistoric cultures. They were important weapon of war, weapons of war from ancient history until the early modern period, when they were rendered increasingly obsolete by the development of the more powerful and accurate firearms. Today, bows and arrows are mostly used for bowhunting, hunting and Modern competitive archery, sports. Archery is the art, practice, or skill of using bows to shooting, shoot arrows.Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 17 A person who shoots arrows with a bow is called a bowman or an archer. Someone who makes bows is known as a bowyer,Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 31 someone who makes arrows is a fletching, fletcher,Paterson ''Encyclopaedia of Archery'' p. 56 and some ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dagger
A dagger is a fighting knife with a very sharp point and usually one or two sharp edges, typically designed or capable of being used as a cutting or stabbing, thrusting weapon.State v. Martin, 633 S.W.2d 80 (Mo. 1982): This is the dictionary or popular-use definition of a dagger, which has been used to describe everything from an ice pick to a folding knife with a pointed blade as a 'dagger'. The Missouri Supreme Court used the popular definition of 'dagger' found in Webster's New Universal Dictionary ("a short weapon with a sharp point used for stabbing") to rule that an ordinary pointed knife with a four- to five-inch blade constitutes a 'dagger' under the Missouri criminal code.California Penal Code 12020(a)(24):"dagger" means a ''knife or other instrument'' with or without a handguard that is ''capable of ready use as a stabbing weapon'' that may inflict great bodily injury or death. The State of California and other jurisdictions have seized upon the popular-use definition of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sword
A sword is an edged and bladed weapons, edged, bladed weapon intended for manual cutting or thrusting. Its blade, longer than a knife or dagger, is attached to a hilt and can be straight or curved. A thrusting sword tends to have a straighter blade with a pointed tip. A slashing sword is more likely to be curved and to have a sharpened cutting edge on one or both sides of the blade. Many swords are designed for both thrusting and slashing. The precise definition of a sword varies by historical epoch and geographic region. Historically, the sword developed in the Bronze Age, evolving from the dagger; the Bronze Age sword, earliest specimens date to about 1600 BC. The later Iron Age sword remained fairly short and without a crossguard. The spatha, as it developed in the Late Roman army, became the predecessor of the European sword of the Middle Ages, at first adopted as the Migration Period sword, and only in the High Middle Ages, developed into the classical Knightly sword, ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Force Multiplication
In military science, force multiplication or a force multiplier is a factor or a combination of factors that gives personnel or weapons (or other hardware) the ability to accomplish greater feats than without it. The expected size increase required to have the same effectiveness without that advantage is the ''multiplication factor''. For example, if a technology like GPS enables a force to accomplish the same results as a force five times as large without GPS, then the multiplier is five. Such estimates are used to justify the investment for force multipliers. History Notable historical examples of force multiplication include: * Fortifications: e.g. the Theodosian Wall of Constantinople * Reliance on air force by the Coalition in the Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq Doctrinal changes During the First World War, the Germans experimented with what were called "storm tactics" in which a small group of highly trained soldiers ( stormtroopers) would open a salient throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guerilla Warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of unconventional warfare in which small groups of irregular military, such as rebels, partisans, paramilitary personnel or armed civilians, which may include recruited children, use ambushes, sabotage, terrorism, raids, petty warfare or hit-and-run tactics in a rebellion, in a violent conflict, in a war or in a civil war to fight against regular military, police or rival insurgent forces. Although the term "guerrilla warfare" was coined in the context of the Peninsular War in the 19th century, the tactical methods of guerrilla warfare have long been in use. In the 6th century BC, Sun Tzu proposed the use of guerrilla-style tactics in ''The Art of War''. The 3rd century BC Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus is also credited with inventing many of the tactics of guerrilla warfare through what is today called the Fabian strategy, and in China Peng Yue is also often regarded as the inventor of guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
